Bernini’s Rome

Sculptures that marked the 17th century in the Eternal city

Favored by the pope, the papal court and its noble families of the time, Bernini was probably the artist who knew best how to interpret natural form at a time when men were seeking to reconcile two aspects of existence, that of the earthly and the spiritual, that of sensuality and devotion to God. These pages explore the Rome of Bernini’s time: Bernini’s early sculptures that hark back to the paganist and sensual tones of antiquity, and the shift towards Christianity in his mature works, interpreting the religious drives and erotic aspects of Mysticism in the 1600s.