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Searching For Bernini

~ Musings on the Ecstasy of Italian Art and Culture

Searching For Bernini

Category Archives: Bernini

Book Review: Mistress of the Vatican

24 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by SearchingForBernini in Art History, Bernini, Book Reviews, Books, History, Italian History, Politics, Rome, Uncategorized, women

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Baroque, Bernini, Borromini, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Hillary Clinton, Italy, Olimpia Pamphili, Politics of Italy, Rome

Mistress Cover

Dedicated to all the women who refuse to be locked up.

I wrote about Olimpia Pamphili in a previous post and she so fascinated me that I recently read a 2008 biography of her, Mistress of the Vatican…The Secret Female Pope, by Eleanor Herman. The book begins with this irresistible (to me) dedication.

It’s a perfect opening for this engaging and entertaining book since Herman returns again and again to the theme that ran through Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphili’s life, and which was a complicated reality for many women in Renaissance and Baroque Rome: the threat of being shut away in a convent, often because the women’s families couldn’t—or wouldn’t—pay for a dowry that would allow them to marry and perhaps gain some semblance of independence, or at least be allowed to leave the house. Once a woman (or girl) entered a convent, fuhgeddaboudit! She spent her life locked up.

Olimpia as an older woman after the death of her second husband.

Olimpia as an older woman after the death of her second husband.

But the dedication would hold special significance for Olimpia, who not only refused to be put away in a convent, but also defied those who would lock her into behaving in ways expected of the respectable daughter of a tax assessor in Viterbo, Italy, or, later, as a phenomenally rich widow and then a wife of a nobleman. In fact, Olimpia became the power behind Pope Innocent X, a man she may have loved but definitely fought for, and nearly single-handedly got elected to the papacy.

Herman describes Olimpia as “a baroque rock star,” and if we compare her to some women today, she might easily line up with our (perhaps) future president, Hillary Clinton.

Hillary debating Bernie Sanders at the Democratic presidential debate, October 12, 2015.

Hillary debating Bernie Sanders at the Democratic presidential debate, October 12, 2015.

Prime Minister of Italy, Matteo Renzi

Prime Minister of Italy, Matteo Renzi

In fact, to use a technique Herman relies on often to bring Olimpia to life in her book, we might imagine Olimpia, staring with awe, pride, and not a little envy at Hilary, as she recently vanquished her male opponents on stage in the first Democratic debate. Had she lived today, there’s no question that Olimpia herself would have run for Prime Minister of Italy, and Matteo Renzi wouldn’t have stood a chance against her.

But in 17th-century Rome, such ambitions were beyond the scope. Herman describes the age in all its gritty debauchery as “a time when dead pontiffs were left naked on the Vatican floor because their servants had pilfered the bed and swiped the clothes off the corpse.” It was Dickensian long before Charles Dickens was born.

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Things I Love: New York Review of Books Loves Bernini

20 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by SearchingForBernini in Art History, Bernini, Book Reviews, Books, History, Italian History, Politics, Rome, Uncategorized, women

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Bernini’s Laocoon

I love it when my 400-year-old boyfriend Gian Lorenzo Bernini gets recognized. Thanks to my good friend and journalist Vince Cosgrove for alerting me to this story:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jun/04/bernini-he-had-touch/

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My Sketchy Date with Bernini

25 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by SearchingForBernini in Art, Art History, Bernini, Italian History, Rome

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

architecture, art history, Baroque, Bernini, Borromini, Francesco Borromini, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Gianlorenzo Bernini

Bernini self-portrat, completed when he was in his twenties.

Bernini self-portrait, completed when he was in his twenties.

“You must be in heaven!” my friend Toni messaged me. And she was right. She’d written in response to this photo (below) I’d posted of Gian Lorenzo Bernini‘s lion, a model for part of his Four Rivers fountain that’s just one of the exhibits in Il Laboratorio del Genio: Bernini Disegnatore, which is currently showing at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, until May 24.

Clay model by Bernini of the lion for la fontana Quattro Fiumi

Clay model by Bernini of the lion for la fontana Quattro Fiumi

I fell in love with Bernini and his genius years ago at the Galleria Borghese where his incredible sculptures of Apollo and Daphne, the Rape of Proserpine and his masterful (and super studly) David are all on magnificent display. Having read a lot about my 400-year-old boyfriend, I knew he’d also earned a reputation as a painter but until I visited this Barberini exhibit I hadn’t had many opportunities to see his drawings—to witness the Cavaliere’s genius in progress.

The exhibit, which brings together sketches from museums all over the world, is divided into several sections, including portraits; ancient designs; St. Peter’s and the Vatican; and fountains, obelisks and statues.

It begins with several self-portraits by Bernini. He greets you in all his intensity right at the door.

Self-portrait of a young Bernini

Self-portrait of a young Bernini

And all the portraits, whether of himself or others, have a similar intensity in the eyes. No doubt his own keen observation of the world around him, and his ability to translate the inherent emotion onto the page or into marble, helped bring out his genius. Continue reading →

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