BERNINI, ber-ne•, GIOVANNI LORENZO ( 150S-16SO). The most celebrated Italian sculptor of the. Baroque period, also renowned as an archi tect. The son of a Tuscan sculptor employed at Naples, he was horn in that city December 7, 1598. his father's careful training, he carved creditably at the age of eight. After their removal to Rome, the boy's remarkable endow ments proeured him, in his tenth year, an audi ence with Paul V., who prophesied that he would be the Michelangelo of his century. The boy studied for three years with tireless energy among the antiques of the Vatican, and in his teens executed groups which placed him in the foremost rank of his day. In the best-known of these, the "David," his own portrait, "Apollo and Daphne" (both in the Villa Borghese), and the "Rape of Proserpine" Lodovisi), all the charaeteristies of his fully developed style appear. He was made a knight of the Order of Christ by Gregory XV., and, with the accession of his friend and preceptor Urban VIII., he be came the practical dictator of all artistic under takings. After two years' study in painting and architecture, required by the Pope for the great project, lie designed and erected the colossal bahlacehino under, the cupola of Saint Peter's with its crooked columns. On the death of Maderna in 1629, he became architect of Saint Peter's, and completed the Barberini Palace, himself designing the grandiose facade and ellip tical staircase. His most attractive statue of this period is "Santa Bibbiana" in Saint Peter's. Two years before Urban VII l.'s death, he began his celebrated tomb in Saint Peter's, with the highly characteristic bronze statue of the Pope.
His chief works under Innocent X. were the "Saint Theresa" group in Santa Maria della Vittoria. and the celebrated fountain of the Piazza Savona. Under Alexander VII. (1655 67), he designed the colonnade of Saint Peter's and the Scala Begin connecting the church with the Vatican—works of the highest a•hitectural order. Of far less importance is the celebrated "Catedra di San Pietro" in the apse of the church, designed to support the traditional chair of the first Roman bishop. After having for fifty years dictated the artistic taste and achievements of the Papacy, during which time he designed or executed 37 busts, 58 statues. and 50 architec tural works, he died in Rome 28, 1680. Never during his lifetime has an artist received greater tumor and appreciation. On his journey to l'aris, where he furnished a design of construc tion for the Louvre to Louis XIV., lie was every where received like a royal personage. con ceptions dominated the sculpture of Europe for over a hundred years. To modern taste they are far less pleasing: for, while his work displays great technical ability and tine decorative quality. it is exaggerated in form and theatrical in ac tion. His biography was written by a relative, Domenico fb.riiini ( Rome, 1713) ; consult also Dohme, Kunst and Kiiiistler (Leipzig, 1879) : La la one, Journal du voyage (le earaller JfCrnilt en. France (Paris, 1885) ; Fraschetti. // Bcrnini (Milan, 1899).