"Bernini-His Life and His Rome" by Franco Mormando

I needed to learn more of the life, times and context of the greatest of the Baroque artists; this volume provided the information.

What a rollicking life: Gian Lorenzo Bernini's father was a known and respected sculpture and painter who married his mom when she was only 12 years old! We would be shocked and call the police! In those days (1600-ish): on the edge but legal and not too strange. She outlived him by decades after having many children.

Gian Loranzo worked in his father's studio and seemingly was recognized as a prodigy early on.
His was Type A before there was "Type A". Hyper energetic, driven, workaholic, hardly took time to eat--but loved to eat fruit--Bernini worked those around him as hard as he worked himself. He did not collaborate well: he took the credit for the work made by his studio. He was handsome and charming with courtly manners. Early on, he was made a Knight by the Pope.

He had a younger brother, Luigi, whose skills as an architect and stone mason were needed in the studio. But Luigi was quirky, to say the least: he had sexual peccadilloes. When Bernini figured out that Luigi was sleeping with his mistress, Costanza, he drew his sword and chased his younger brother all the way from the Vatican to Santa Maria Maggiore, mindless of passersby and the cops!! He could get away with this because he was the famous Bernini, closely allied to powerful Popes.

Much later, Luigi forced himself violently upon a young man within the confines of St. Peter's; a shocking crime. He could have been condemned to burn. Gian Lorenzo, in his 70's by then, bailed him out by providing quantities of free art for the Pope and Cardinals. 

The St. Ludovica Albertoni in Trastevere was one of the pieces. There are many other amazing stories worth reading the book to learn. Bernini's sojourn in France, for example.

Wonderful book--scholarly enough but (and I have mentioned this before) written with a modern voice to inform and entertain an ordinary reader.

Bernini was buried in Santa Maria Maggiore under a simple plaque---no elaborate tomb....but when in Rome, look around: All of Rome is his Tomb Stone.

Oh. Remember Costanza? After Bernini chased his brother through Rome with the sword, he instructed one of his retainers to take her a bottle of wine----then slash her face with a knife. After that, Costanza's husband continued to work in Bernini's studio just as before, as if nothing had happened.