View Page: Bernini's Sculptures in the Villa Borghese

	Bernini's Sculptures in the Villa Borghese
	written by nmdaybaz / 09.22.2005

Section One

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Introduction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gian_Lorenzo_Bernini

Bernini Self Portrait

http://www.saint-mike.org/Library/ Papal_Library/PaulV/PaulV.html

Bust of Pope Paul V

Bust completed by Bernini in 1618.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image: Galleria_Borghese_by_Mike_Reed.jpg

Villa Borghese

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, as Rome began to make its artistic transition from the late Renaissance to early Baroque, the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini was just starting to make his mark in the art world. The talents of this budding prodigy did not go unnoticed by Scipione Caffarelli Borghese, and it was his patronage that set Bernini’s career on a firm foundation.

Scipione Borghese was a man who attained great wealth and power due to his greed and the good fortune of having a powerful uncle. His education itself was financed by that uncle, Camillo Borghese. The relationship between Scipione and Camillo proved to be invaluable. In 1605, Camillo Borghese was elected to the papal throne as Paul V. Using his position he was able to ordain his nephew as a priest within the year. Ten days later, he appointed Scipione cardinal. At this time the official post of Cardinal Nephew had not yet been abolished, and with it came the responsibilities of managing the internal and external affairs of the Papal States. The Cardinal benefited further from the papal nepotism when his uncle placed the management of both the papal and Borghese family finances into his care. Scipione Borghese exploited his authority as Cardinal Nephew and amassed great fortunes for the Borghese family.

In contrast to his uncle, Scipione Borghese was an ambitious connoisseur of art. Pope Paul V was not interested in the experimental techniques and novel designs of the art world; rather he focused on urban embellishment and works of engineering or private commissions for himself and his family. He did, however, indirectly support Rome’s rising Baroque sculptor, Bernini, through his supportive connection with his nephew.

Bernini was born in 1598 in Naples and moved with his family to Rome in 1605. His talents were fostered at a young age by his father, Pietro Bernini, who was also a gifted sculptor. Pietro Bernini taught his young son the fundamentals of sculpture and introduced him to artists such as Annibale Carracci who helped further his education. Additionally his work in Santa Maria Maggiore for Pope Paul V provided the connection to the Borghese family that revealed his son’s talents to Scipione Borghese. When he was approximately sixteen years of age, Bernini completed his first commission for the Borghese family, the Goat Almalthea. Following soon after, he sculpted a bust of the pope which seemed to secure Scipione Borghese’s opinion of him and resulted in six years of patronage from the Cardinal. Bernini completed several more sculptures of much greater magnitude than the first two commissioned for the family, for display in Scipione Borghese’s grand villa. The villa itself, designed by architects Flaminio Ponzio and Giovanni Vasanzio, was built mainly to house and display the Cardinal’s extensive art collection. This was a very appropriate setting for the early works of one of Rome’s greatest sculptors of the seventeenth century.

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