John Talaber

Fame of the Artist:The Influences of the Legend of Annibale Carracci

on the Practice of Gian Lorenzo Bernini

“That the fame of an artist can outlive any of his productions isin itself a striking affirmation of the potent influence of thebiography of the artist… at this point the biographer becomes aprophet, and the life history assumes the qualities of the myth.”1

These words have compelling meaning when looking at the life

and work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini as described in the early

biographical documents of his life. In order to gain a better

understanding of his artistic sensibilities it is important to

examine the biographical literature on Bernini’s life from the

seventeenth century because, although the truth-value of specific

biographical anecdotes has been questioned in recent scholarship,

writers often still adhere to an idealized view of Bernini

derived from these texts.2 We must be flexible in our readings

of these biographies and approach them as authored

interpretations in order to try to decipher historical fact from

1 ? Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz, Legend Myth and Magic in the Image of theArtist: An Historical Experiment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979) 5, 51.2 ? Maarten Delbeke, Evonne Levy , and Steven F. Ostrow, “Prolegomena to the Interdisciplinary Study of Bernini’s Biographies,” in Bernini’s Biographies: Critical Essays, ed. Maarten Delbeke, Evonne Levy, and Steven F. Ostrow (University Park: PennState University Press, 2006), 1.

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literary fiction, with the ultimate goal to be not to prove the

truth or error of a particular interpretation, but to decide

whether to agree or disagree with certain renditions in

accordance with our own interpretative readings.

One popular interpretation inherent in the art of Bernini is

the strong influence seen from works by the great master of the

Renaissance, Michelangelo Buonarroti. The impact of

Michelangelo’s career and reputation on Bernini can be found in

many contemporary sources. Rudolf Primesberger discusses

Bernini’s undisguised “Michelangelism.” Howard Hibbard delineates

Bernini’s ability to conceptualize ideas with powerful expression

as a result of Michelangelo’s influence. And Peter Lavin connects

Bernini’s perfection of the arts of sculpture, painting, and

architecture to the image of Michelangelo in Vasari’s lives.3 The

fame achieved by Michelangelo through his art, together with his

ascension to near Godliness through Vasari’s writing of him as

3 ? Irving Lavin, Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts Vol. 1 of 2 vols (London: Oxford Universty Press, 1980); Howard Hibbard, Bernini (Baltimore: Penguin, 1965) 25, 29, 233; Rudolf Preimesberger, “Themes from Art Theory in the Early Works of Bernini,” in Gianlorenzo Bernini New Aspects of His Art and Thought: A Commemorative Volume, ed. Irving Lavin (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1985), 7.

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the divine artist, has appeared to make him as unavoidable then as he

is today.4

Many scholars have weighed in on the connection between the

two artists, though none as forcefully as University of

California scholar, Catherine Soussloff. In her article,

“Imitatio Buonarroti,” Soussloff convincingly argues that the use

of Michelangelo’s reputation as a textual device within the Lives

of Bernini combined with other contemporary sources presenting

the stature of Michelangelo as a lofty exemplar, point to

Bernini’s personification of him. Her main argument is, in fact,

4 ? See Giorgio Vasari The Life of Michelangelo, trans. AB Hinds (London: Pallas Athene, 2006) and Ascanio Condivi The Life of Michelangelo, trans. Alice Sedwick Wohl (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1999). For more on the influence of Michelangelo’s reputation on other artists see Francis Ames-Lewisand Paul Joannides, ed. Reactions to the Master: Michelangelo’s Effect on Art and Artists in the Sixteenth Century (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2003), 1: “He was heorized, within his own lifetime, by Vasari in 1550 and by Condivi in 1553. He was accorded what was in effect a state funeral in Florence in 1564 and, in the second edition of Vasari’s Lives, which appeared in 1568, his status was, if anything, enhanced. Any ambitious artist had in one way or another to come to terms with Michelangelo’s achievement.” For information on the extravagance of Michelangelo’s funeral and it’s aftermath see also Jacopo Giunta, The Divine Michelangelo: The Florentine Academy’s Homage on his Death in 1564, translated and annotated by Rudolf & Margot Wittkower (London: Phaidon, 1964).

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that “Bernini self-consciously modeled himself upon the ideal

represented by the reputation of Michelangelo.”5

In this paper I would like to suggest an alternative source

of inspiration for Bernini from that described in Soussloff’s

article. I propose to show that what is presented in Bernini’s

biographies about his theoretical perspectives on art is better

reflected in the model of Annibale Carracci. In my argument I

will address how Bernini’s familiarity with the theoretical

ideals conferred on Annibale in contemporary texts may have

influenced his own unique methodology. Through an understanding

of the perception of Annibale in seventeenth century Italy we

will be able to see how the theories surrounding the style of the

Carracci written in seventeenth century texts directly influenced

the thoughts and works of Gian Lorenzo. Bernini’s own role in

the creation of his biographical literature will also reveal that

his interest in Annibale was very likely a connection that he

promoted rather than one interjected by his biographers. The

bulk of my argument will be based on the connection between

Annibale and Bernini, but in order to justify my claims I feel I 5 ? Catherine M. Soussloff, “Imitatio Buonarroti,” in Sixteenth Century Journal 20, no. 4 (1989): 591.

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must first acknowledge what appears to be the more prevalent

belief in current scholarship: that it was Michelangelo and not

Annibale who had the greatest impact on how Bernini shaped

himself as a artist.

To begin, we must first look at the three main texts of

Bernini’s life from the concurrent time period: the Vita by the

Florentine Fillipo Baldinucci published in 1682, the Vita by

Bernini’s son Domenico published in 1713, and a then unpublished

diary recorded by the Frenchman Paul Fréart de Chantelou during

Bernini’s visit to Paris in 1665. It is fortunate to have three

contemporary sources on the life of the artist through which we

can analyze the concordances and discontinuities within the texts

in order to gain a better understanding of the motivations of the

authors as well as the plausibility ascribed to the

historiography of Bernini. For example, in the two Vite one of

the first anecdotes describing the young Bernini tells of his

visit to Pope Paul V during which the Pontiff asks the young

Bernini to demonstrate his artistic abilities by drawing a

portrait. After the boy had finished the sketch in a deft manner

with such an excellent result, the Pope declared, “This child

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will be the Michelangelo of his age.”6 This same narrative is

described by Bernini to Chantelou in his Diary with the exception

that no mention of Michelangelo is made.7

It appears as though the specific quotation attributed to

the Pope in this anecdote might not adhere to historical truth 6 ? Domenico Bernini, “The Life of the Cavalier Gian Lorenzo Bernini,” in Bernini in Perspective, ed. and trans. by George C. Bauer (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1976), 25: “The Pontiff venerable by nature in appearance, wished to try the courage of the boy by affecting terribleness, and, facing him, he commanded in grave tones that there, in his presence, he should draw a head. Gian Lorenzo picked up the pen with confidence and smoothed the paper over the little table of the Pope himself. Beginning to make the first line, he stopped, somewhat uncertain,and then, bowing his head modestly to the Pontiff, requested of him ‘what head he wished, if of a man or woman, if young or old, and if one of these, with what expression he wished it, whether sad or cheerful, scornful or agreeable?’ ‘If this is so,’ the Pope now added, ‘then you know how to do everything.’ And he ordered him to make a head of St. Paul. With a few strokes of the pen and with an admirable boldness of hand he completed it with such mastery that the Pope was lost in wonder and only said to some of the Cardinals who were there by chance, ‘This child will be the Michelangelo of his age.’” See also Filippo Baldinucci, The Life of Bernini, trans. Catherine Engass (University Part: Penn State University Press, 1990), 10.7 ? Paul Fréart de. Chantelou, Diary of the Cavaliere Bernini’s Visit to France, trans. Margery Corbett (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 102: “His Holiness could not believe that he had done it and asked if he would draw a head in his presence. He agreed and pen and paper were sent for. When he was ready to begin he asked His Holiness what head he wished him to draw. At that the Pople realized that it was really the boy who had done the St. John, for he had believed that he would draw some conventional head. He asked him to draw a head of St. Paul,

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but rather to a common theme in biography, whereby the revelation

of childhood genius indicates the future eminence of the artist,

a topic dating back to Vasari and earlier mythology.8 In fact,

this is one of the arguments made by Soussloff in her article.

She acknowledges that most of the Michelangelo references in

Bernini’s Vite are literary devices used by the biographers to

connect the legend of Michelangelo with that of Bernini. The

early biographers goal was to make their readers understand that

Bernini would bring glory to himself, his patrons, and his time,

and their rendition of the Pope’s comparing him to Michelangelo

was designed to do just that.9 Stephen F. Ostrow is of the same

mind as Sousloff when he says, “Although the references to

Michelangelo in the Vite are few in number, and occur largely

outside of Bernini’s voice, his presence is felt throughout the

which he did there and then.”8 ? Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic, ch. 2. For more information on the viability of the young Bernini’s precocitity see Irving Lavin, “Five New Youthful Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini and a Revised Chronology of His Early Works,” The Art Bulletin50 no.3 (Sep., 1968): 223-248. In his article Lavin proposes that the St. John, suggested in the Chantelou diary as being the remarkable work that instigated the Pope’s interest in the young artist, was actually a marble bust of Monsignor Giovanni BattistaSantoni carved by Bernini in 1610 when he was only eleven years old. 9 ? Soussloff, “Imitatio Buonarroti,” 588.

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biographies.”10 However, what Soussloff and Ostrow disregard are

the many criticisms of Michelangelo present in the Chantelou

diary, preferring to see him as implicitly fulfilling the role of

Bernini’s teacher and alter ego.

In Chantelou’s diary we find that Bernini’s references to

the great Michelangelo are often done within his own voice and in

a critical tone. Bernini criticized Michelangelo’s reluctance to

do portrait busts, the relatively small number of works he

produced, and his inability to make his sculptures appear flesh-

like.11 However, there are no less than 15 passages in the diary

in which Annibale is in some way mentioned or praised by

Bernini.12 He elicits the utmost admiration for the artist when

he says, “Had Annibale lived at the time of Raphael, his work

would have been a source of jealously to him, and even more to

Veronese, Titian, and Correggio, although they all had a

marvelous sense of color.”13

10 ? Steven F. Ostrow, “Bernini’s Voice: From Chantelou’s Journalto the Vite,” in Bernini’s Biographies: Critical Essays, ed. Maarten Delbeke et al. (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2006), 129.11 ? Ibid., 127 . See also Chantelou, Diary, 41, 115, 137, 246.12 ? Ibid., 125. See also Chantelou, Diary, 35, 52, 83, 137, 168, 193-94, 203, 279, 281, 287-88, 293, 324.13 ? Chantelou, Diary, 281.

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While Paul Fréart de Chantelou was known to have a

classicist taste for art, as was the French tradition of the

time, it initially appears unlikely that his private journal

would be manipulated in favor of personal tastes or for political

gain when it was never intended to be published.14 Indeed, it

was never planned to be widely disseminated to a large audience,

but the diary was, in fact, meant to be seen by individuals other

than Chantelou himself. It has been argued that Chantelou was

writing the Journal at the request of Jean-Baptiste Colbert and

intended it to be a record of an affair of state. It was several

years after Bernini’s visit that Chantelou finished his editing

to the text with the intentions of making it an official court

document available to a select audience. Some have viewed this

as a way for Chantelou, a steward to King Louis XIV,15 to bolster

his own aesthetic views in the ardent debates taking place within

court circles during this time.16 While this indicates that the 14 ? See Tomaso Montinari, “At the Margins of the Historiography of Art,” in Bernini’s Biographies: Critical Essays, ed. Maarten Delbeks et al. (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2006), 78.15 ? Anthony Blunt, introduction to Diary of the Cavaliere Bernini’s Visit to France, by Paul Fréart de Chantelou (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), xv-xxvii.16 ? See Ostrow, “Bernini’s Voice,” 121- 122.

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diary is a motivated text with its own questionable truth-value,

similar to Domenico and Baldinucci’s Vite, a close examination of

all three texts and their similarities will indicate that they

should be considered as important and reflective biographical

accounts. If we therefore accept that some of Bernini’s comments

may indeed reflect his own opinions, the question arises: where

did Bernini get such a praiseworthy view of Annibale? To

understand Bernini’s perception of him, we must examine the

particular image of Annibale that was created by seicento writers

and theorists.

Before Bernini had to be measured up against the likes of

Michelangelo, Annibale Carracci was in a similar position of

having to deal with the general pessimism towards contemporary

art in comparison with that of the past. Using contemporary

sources, Donald Posner describes a growing dissatisfaction of

Italian art in the second half of the sixteenth century. Dolce’s

Dialogo della pittura of 1557 concludes that painting had begun to go

astray after the accomplishments of Michelangelo, Raphael, and

Titian. These sentiments are echoed in print by Lomazzo in 1584

and Armenini in 1586, both surmising that the noble art of

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painting had declined in the past fifty years.17 The reasons

given for this degeneration of art focus on the poor practice of

artists, and according to Bellori, the artists’ abandoning of

nature in exchange for fantastic patterns in creating form.18

This maniera, as it was called, was rejected by Annibale as he

successfully established a new artistic style of imitation based

on the understanding of the principles of nature combined with

the ideal traditions of art.19

In Bellori’s Life of Annibale Carracci published in 1672 he writes

that Annibale’s noble mind and happy genius allowed him to

combine “two things rarely conceded to man: nature and supreme

excellence.”20 He praises Annibale’s ability to “penetrate and

make for his own” the best part of other artists. Annibale

revealed emotions by giving color, life, and significance to each

figure, something he learned through the observation of natural

17 ? Donald Posner, Annibale Carracci: A Study in the Reform of Italian Painting Around 1590 (London: Phaidon, 1971), 33.18 ? Giovanni Pietro Bellori, The Lives of Annibale & Agostino Carracci, trans. Catherine Engass (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1968), 5-6.19 ? Charles Dempsey, “The Carracci Reform of Painting,” in The Age of Correggio and the Carracci, exh. cat. (Washington D.C., 1986), 252.20 ? Bellori, Lives, 6.

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actions.21 In the eyes of Bellori, it was these qualities that

Annibale had combined, in what came to be known as his eclectic

method, that enabled him to triumph over the artists of the past.

Malvasia, another art writer of the time, for the most part

echoes, albeit in a more dramatic and often exaggerated fashion,

the sentiments made by Bellori in praising the greatness of the

Carracci. In his Life of the Carracci published in 1678,22 Malvasia

21 ? Ibid. 8, 10, 15; The high praise that is offered to painting’s resurgence and epitomized in the works of Annibale in Bellori’s lives is quite different from the view that he held forthe development of sculpture. Of the ongoing Paragone debate Bellori was surely in the camp for Painting as is seen in his description of contemporary sculpture in the Life of Francesco Duquesnoy: “Not even in modern centuries has sculpture come closeto reviving or renewing its ancient appearance, even if it seemedto have wanted to rise to its former honors through the inspiration of Buonarroti, but because this sculptor didn’t fulfill all of art, perfecting only the amplitude of outlines, ofthe other parts of art he left behind desire rather than example.And in our own age, there hasn’t been anyone who could have knownhow to reach the point of Buonarroti…”It is the renewing of art to its former honors, which the Bernini in his biographies wants to address through the integration of these “other parts” that Bellori found so lacking in the work of Michelangelo.22 ? Malvasia’s record of the lives of the Carracci was included in his history of Bolognese painters. See C.C. Malvasia, Felsina pittrice, vite de’ pittori bolognesi, 2 vols. (Bologna, 1678). For this paper, any reference made to Malvasia’s writing is taken from Anne Summerscale, commen. and trans., Malvasia’s Life of the Carracci (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2000). Malvasia also records numerous other seicento writers’ considerations of the Carracci, see p. 234-41.

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quotes Annibale in a conversation he had with his brother and

cousin: “If Corregio is so well loved, and Titian too, and yet

their fame is so opposed to that of Raphael, why shouldn’t we be

appreciated, since we strike out on the path blazed by all three

of them?”23 Malvasia describes Annibale’s Assumption of the

Virgin as a mix of styles in which he united the grace of

Parmigianino, with the simplicity of Corregio, and the majesty of

both Veronese and Titian. He the describes Ludvico’s reaction to

this work in a statement to his younger cousin Annibale: “Now

this, my dear Annibale, is the style I like: this is what you

must hold on to, because to imitate a single master is to make

oneself his follower and his inferior, while to draw from all

four of them and also select things from other painters is to

make oneself their judge and leader.”24

Malvasia also tells of a letter written by Annibale in which

he mentions Raphael’s St. Cecila alterpiece and how it “used to seem

a miracle,” but after his introduction to the works of Corregio

now appears as a “completely wooden thing.”25 The same attitude

23 ? Summerscale, Malvasia, 116.24 ? Ibid., 138-139.25 ? Ibid., 96; see also Posner, Annibale Carracci, 33-34.

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was taken by Bernini when he mentioned that the only thing

lacking in Raphael was that “lovely handling of the Lombards.”26

Bernini admitted a similarly dissatisfied view of Michelangelo

saying that while he was a great man, and excellent sculptor and

architect, he had “more art than grace.” In his opinion,

Michelangelo was primarily concerned with anatomy, like “a

surgeon,” and for this reason he had not equaled the great

artists of antiquity.27

It appears as if Bernini had taken a page out of Annibale’s

book in being able to confidently criticize the masters of the

Renaissance, and at one point during his visit with Chantelou,

Bernini even tells a tale in which Annibale himself was said to

criticize the great Michelangelo. Bernini recalls Annibale being

asked by one of his pupils what he thought about Michelangelo’s

statue of Christ in the S. Maria sopra Minerva to which Annibale

replied, “It is by Michelangelo; look well at its beauty, but to

understand it thoroughly you must realize how bodies were

constructed at that time,” thus, making fun of Michelangelo’s

26 ? Chantelou, Diary, 281.27 ? Ibid., 137.

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departure from nature.28 Bernini also relates to Chantelou

instances where he interacted with the mature Annibale as a young

boy. He speaks of a time when Annibale met him on his way to the

Academy and decided to join him. Upon arriving, the teachers

asked Annibale to pose the model for the class, which he did, and

then proceeded to draw along with the rest of the students.29

Baldinucci records a similar instance in his Vita of Bernini,

telling of a time when, as a young boy, Bernini found himself in

the company Annibale Carracci and other masters in the basilica

of St. Peter’s:

They had finished their devotions and were leaving the

church when that great master, turning toward the tribune,

said, “Believe me, the day will come, when, no one, knows, that

a prodigious genius will make two great monuments in the middle

and at the end of this temple on a scale in keeping with the

vastness of the building.” That was enough to set Bernini

afire with desire to execute them himself and, not being able to

28 ? Ibid., 43. 29 ? Ibid., 35.

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restrain his inner impulse, he said in heartfelt words, “Oh, if

only I could be the one.”30

It is interesting to find within these stories, taken from

accounts in both the Diary and the Vita of Bernini’s life,

anecdotes of the master Annibale Carracci playing the role of

teacher to the young Bernini. Annibale Carracci died on July

16th 1609 when Bernini was not yet eleven years old. Cesare

D’Onofrio, in his work on Bernini, argues that it is highly

unlikely that a direct discipleship between these two great

artists ever really took place due to the illness that Annibale

was suffering in his old age. He also mentions the extreme youth

of Bernini would make it difficult for him to recall with such

detail these direct interactions within which he supposedly

conversed and took instruction from the great master.31

It would then seem logical to assume that this is another

case where the authors are using the fame of an artist as a

literary device to push the narrative of their stories. However,

the strong similarity that stretches from the anecdotes in the

30 ? Baldinucci, Life, 10-11.31 ? Cesare D’Onofrio, Roma Vista da Roma (Rome: Liber, 1967), 99-101.

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French Diary to the ones in Bernini’s Italian Vite, as we have seen

in the multiple references to Annibale as teacher,32 as well as

Bernini’s audience with Paul V as a child,33 would justify that

the works either influenced each other or had a common source.

But, with Chantelou’s Diary remaining unpublished in France it

seems unlikely that the biographers would have had access to it,

and it therefore seems likely that Bernini himself was the

motivator behind much of what is read in the accounts of his

life.34

This does not mean that the authors had no control over the

content they chose to include or modify in their works, as

Sousloff and Ostrow have successfully shown.35 There is no doubt

that Domenico, Baldinucci, and Chantelou all had specific goals

in mind when writing their accounts and framed their texts to fit

these goals. It is through the similar threads that unravel when32 ? See also Chantelou, Diary, 287: “He told us that he had been advised by Annibale Carracci when he was a youngster, to copy Michelangelo’s Last Judgment for at least two years to learn the sequence of the muscles.” 33 ? See notes 6 and 7.34 ? For more examples of the connections between texts that suggests an autobiographical slant to the content of Bernini’s Lives see Montinari, “Historiography,” 78-84 and Ostrow, “Bernini’s Voice,” 132-136. 35 ? See notes 9 and 16.

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comparing all three texts that we can infer that Bernini was a

person who was highly conscious of his own image and one of the

motivating factors that influenced his manipulation of that image

was the artist, Annibale Carracci. He revered that intellect of

Annibale’s that was hailed by the Carracci biographers, speaking

of how Annibale had used his “great big brain”36 to combine those

aspects of other artists he found most worthy. Chantelou tells us

of a conversation he had with Bernini in which he gives his

impressions of Annibale’s style:

He gave the highest praise to Annibale Carracci, saying that

he had combined the grace and draftsmanship of Raphael, the

knowledge and anatomical science of Michelangelo, the

nobility of Correggio, the coloring of Titian, and the fertile

imagination of Guilio Romano and Andrea Mantegna. His manner

was formed through a kitchen with a spoon he had dipped into

each pot, adding from each a little to his own mixture.37

The eclectic style of the Carracci that appears in the

writing of Bellori and Malvasia is reiterated here in Bernini’s 36 ? There are two separate occasions in Chantelou’s diary where Bernini specifically refers to the “great big brain” or intellect of Annibale Carracci. See Chantelou, Diary, 83, 137.37 ? Ibid., 52.

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comments as recorded in the Chantelou diary. Although the

political and regional motivations of Paul Chantelou have been

duly noted as possible explanations for the affectations of the

direction of the diary in describing Bernini’s tastes and

influences, we have here a positive reference appraising artists

that would not agree with his French classical tastes, such as

Michelangelo and Titian. So while some would see Chantelou’s

regional aesthetic preferences as the main motivator for many of

his anecdotes, we see here the inclusion of a Bernini quote that

belies that insinuation. Not only that, but if we compare the

eclectic type of artist that Bernini praises in this extract from

Chantelou against a quote taken from the Baldinucci Vita, we find

some other striking similarities.

Towards the end of Baldinucci’s Life of Bernini, he discusses

some of the theoretical ideas held by the artist, in which he

also includes a list of Bernini’s considerations for the most

famous painters. “He placed the most famous painters in the

following order: The first and most important he said was Raphael

whom he called a bottomless vessel that collected waters from all

the springs: that is to say, Raphael possessed the most perfect

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aspects of all the others together. After him he put Correggio,

then Titian, and finally Annibale Carracci.”38 In this statement

of Bernini’s artists preference, one in which Michelangelo is

glaringly absent, we find a similar picture of the ideal artist

as the one painted in the Chantelou diary. While in the

Baldinucci text, Raphael takes the place of Chantelou’s Annibale,

it becomes apparent that the type of artist that Bernini

appreciates is one who can use the best qualities found in

disparate artists of the past and present.39 This mold of artist

as one who uses his intellect, study, and creative volition to

38 ? Baldinucci, Life, 78- 79.39 ? There is evidence that from a recent discovery of texts from the Bernini family library that the artist himself owned andwas familiar literary sources that heralded this type of eclecticartist who did not follow the style of only one solitary artist. See Sarah McPhee, “Bernini’s Books,” The Burlington Magazine 142, no.1168 (2000): 442-448. Bernini owned many books by the artist Giovanni Battista Marino, one of which, La Sampogna, includes a preface in which Marino describes the ancient rhetorician Quintilian’s discussion of artistic imitation. Quintilian questions whether imitation alone is sufficient, “For what, I askagain, would have been the result if no one had done more than his predecessors?” See Summerscale, Malvasia, 162n. 178. Bernini also owned a copy of Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo’s treatise, Tratto dell’ arte de la pittura, 1584, in which Lomazzo elaborates on the notion ofthe perfect painter as one who would be able to unite those special virtues of the greatest masters. See Denis Mahon, Studies in SeicentoArt and Theory (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971), 120n. 39, 137n.91.

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achieve greatness is quite different from the eccentric and

reclusive genius that is modeled by the great Michelangelo whose

abilities were not acquired through study but merely divine

gifts.40

We can certainly see how the eclectic portrayal of the ideal

artist was bestowed upon Annibale Carracci by Bellori, Malvasia,

and others, and a close inspection of two different accounts of

Bernini’s life reveals his admiration for the same type of

artist. But considering the late publication dates for the

Bellori and Malvasia sources, it seems likely that a much earlier

source, may have influenced the innovative and eclectic style of

the younger Bernini’s works. An oration delivered at the funeral

of Agostino Carracci in 1602,41 could provide the inspiration

behind Bernini’s words for Annibale. The eulogy, published in

text in 1603, was written by Lucio Faberio and describes the

stylistic tendencies of the Carracci in this way:

40 ? See Vasari, Life. In his introductory statement of Michelangelo he states: “…the great Ruler of Heaven looked down and seeing these vain and fruitless efforts and the presumptuous opinion of man more removed from truth than light from darkness, resolved, in order to rid him of these errors, to send to earth agenius universal in each art…” 35ff.41 ? Summerscale, Malvasia, 180ff.

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In matters of art, he proceeded in a similar way by

imitating what was best, never committing himself completely

to the style of any one painter however great he might have

been: for it was his belief that no painter whose final goal was

to imitate the example of another painter had ever succeeded

in matching him, much less surpassing him… The aim of our

Carracci was to gather together the perfections found in many

artists, and to reduce these to one harmonious entity that

left nothing to be desired. Yet in the works that he left us,

one clearly sees the boldness and sureness of Michelangelo,

the softness and delicacy of Titian, the grace and majesty

of Raphael, [and] the loveliness and facility of Correggio, to

whose perfections he added his rare and unusual inventions and

compositional ideas, and with these works he was to give and will

continue to give other painters the norm and example of

everything that is needed by an exceptional and perfect

painter.42

This eulogy presents the first published text describing the

synthetic tendencies or eclectic method of the Carracci. Denis

42 ? Ibid., 206.

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Mahon writes of the importance of this small booklet in the

seventeenth century as it was reprinted in various other books on

art and was most certainly owned by Agucchi and other writers.43

It is this idea of Annibale’s eclectic style which Bernini

relates to Chantelou, that matches so closely the remarks found

in the eulogy that it could almost be considered a word for word

transcription. These continual references made to the Carraci’s

eclectic manner in seicento theoretical writings helped to shape

the legend of Annibale, which implicitly inspired Bernini’s

ambitious path towards similar success.

Faberio concludes this passage of his eulogy by coalescing

all his praise onto the works in the Farnese Gallery, which he 43 ? Mahon, Studies,135, 135n.86. Though Mahon mentions the dissemination of the eulogy text and its influence on other writers and theorists of the day, he disagrees with the idea thatthe Carracci family held preconceived notions of implementing a specific eclectic method of painting. He cites passages in Faberio’s eulogy which were imitated from an earlier treatise on art written by Giovanni Paolo Lamazzo (Tratto dell’ arte de la pittura, 1584). He argues that this instance of “borrowing” begins the misinterpretation of the Carracci’s style becoming even more hyperbolized by Malvasia who was invested with regional biases stimulated by political motivations. For arguments upholding thevalidity of the eclectic style of the Carracci see Charles Dempsey, Annibale Carracci and the Beginings of the Baroque Style (Fiesole, Italy: Cadmo, 2000) and Rensselaer W. Lee, “Review of Denis Mahon’s Studies in Seicento Art and Theory” in The Art Bulletin 33 no. 3 (Sep.,1951), 204-212.

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offers as proof of the genius of both Agostino and Annibale.44

Coincidently, it is the remarkable feats of the Farnese Gallery

that offer the visual facet to Annibale’s theoretical ideas of

which Bernini will ultimately assimilate, and in turn, surpass

his progenitors in sculpture. Bernini spoke often of Annibale’s

ceiling telling Chantelou, “It’s a marvel. I have seen the

originals hundreds of times; it is the effect of excellence.”45

We can see an initial indebtedness to Annibale’s work in the

Farnese Gallery in Bernini’s Villa Borghese sculptures. Although

not overt quotations, one can still perceive the subtle influence

the painter had on the sculptor.46 Howard Hibbard states that it

was Annibale’s interpretation of antique sculpture that led to

the particular Annibalesque quality we see in Bernini’s Pluto and

Persephone. Hibbard specifically likens Persephone to a

sculptured Carracci. Her voluptuous yet cold body is echoed in 44 ? Summerscale, Malvasia, 206-207; Faberio also contrasts the Carracci against those who distinctly tried to equal Michelangeloand Raphael and ended up falling very short of their goal.45 ? Chantelou, Diary, 287.46 ? Bernini’s skill in transforming borrowed models into his finished works is actually attributed by Seymour Howard to a “novel, baroque sense of improvisation that he knew from the works of Annibale Carracci.” See Seymour Howard, “Identity Formation and Image Reference in the Narrative Sculpture of Bernini’s Early Maturity,” Art Quarterly n.s. 2 (1979): 140-56.

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the female form of Juno on the Farnese ceiling, just as the

highly idealized anatomy and gloating smile of Pluto can be seen

in many of the Farnese gods.47 Wittkower even suggests that

Pluto’s hair and beard is strikingly similar to that of the

feigned marble caryatids that adorn the space between the

narratives in the gallery.48 This comparison between the

sculpture of Bernini and the painting of Annibale is interesting

because both were making statements invested in the Paragone

debate of the day with their respective works.

The Farnese Gallery was designated as a space to showcase

sculpture, and one of Annibale’s purposes with the frescoed

ceiling was for his paintings to be read in dialogue with the

statues seen beneath. He invites us to compare his very plastic

marble images, exquisitely rendered in paint, with those carved

in actual stone adorning the niches in the Gallery. The same

conversation between sculpture and painting is played out in the

fresco itself with Carracci juxtaposing images of sculptural

elements: the bronze medallions, marble caryatids, and other

47 ? Hibbard, Bernini, 62-63.48 ? Rudolf Wittkower, Bernini: The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque (London: Phaidon, 1997), 14.

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decorative elements, against the images we see inside the

depictions of framed paintings.49 Bernini counters Annibale’s

visual argument for painting over sculpture with his own

statement dictating the supremacy of sculpture over painting as

represented in his Borghese sculptures. With Pluto and Persephone

he seems to push the limits of what can be achieved in stone.

The softness and delicacy of Persephone’s skin as it stretches

between the fingers of Pluto’s violently firm grasp, as well as

the transient tear sliding down Persephone’s cheek, were

illusions once thought only achievable with paint.

We can also see that the figure in Bernini’s sculpture of

David closely resembles that of the Polyphemus depicted on the

Farnese ceiling in Annibale’s Polyphemus killing Acis. The emphatic

force captured in the figure of Polyphemus is conveyed by the

extreme torsion and flexing of muscles in the split second before

he commits his violent act.50 This same dramatic moment is 49 ? Aidan Weston-Lewis, “Annibale Carracci and the Antique,” Master Drawings 30, no. 3 (Autumn, 1992): 290. 50 ? Bellori, Lives, 46. Bellori likens Annibale’s portrayal offorceful movement to a description in Leonardo’s treatise on painting: “If one wishes to hurl spears or rocks, having alignedone’s feet toward the target, one twists and bends the body as much as possible in the opposite direction from that proposed forthe release of power, then returning with speed and ease in the

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depicted in Bernini’s representation of David, although the

extreme tension and threat of potential action in Bernini’s

sculpture is not directed towards any depicted foe, but is

instead located by the gaze of David directly into the space of

viewers, thus incorporating them into the interactive energy of

the work.

Bernini does not only reference similar poses from the grand

works of Annibale’s Farnese ceiling, but in a fashion similar to

the Carracci style described in seicento art theory, he combines

influences from multiple sources. David is derived from the

study of the antique for which Bernini reserved exceptional

praise, “since one sees in them all that is most perfect

reproduced without the affectation of art.”51 We can see hints

of the implied action and animation in David in the contorted

abdomen and twisting body of the Laocoön from antiquity of which

Bernini is said to have held in high esteem.52 However,

direction toward which one wishes the weight to leave one’s hands.” See also Charles Dempsey, Annibale Carracci, The Farnese Gallery, Rome (New York: G. Braziller, 1995), 64.51 ? Baldinucci, Life, 79.52 ? Bernini considered the Laocoön and the Pasquin, from all the works of antiquity, to contain “all the best of art” and along with the Belvedre torso the Laocoön was the “most beautifulstatue existing in Rome.” Ibid.

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diverging from the ideal faces depicted in antique sculpture,

David’s expressive grimace manifests a sense of extreme physical

strain that Bernini was able to illustrate from observing his own

countenance.53

While Bernini most likely studied his own facial expressions

for use in the David,54 he also took some exaggerated liberties in

depicting the furrowed brow and deep-set eyes for maximum

dramatic effect. To quote Bernini: “Nature knows how to give

every part its commensurate beauty, but one must know how to

53 ? Another source that Bernini may have been familiar with that indicates Annibale’s taste for naturalism in opposition to Vasari’s rigid Florentine cannons are the Carracci postille to Vasari’s Lives. Copies of these postille are transcribed in works byBellori and by Malvasia, who is believed to have seen the original on a trip to Rome. See Charles Dempsey, “The Carracci Postille to Vasari’s Lives,” in The Art Bulletin 68 no. 1 (1986), 72-76. In the margin of Vasari’s Life of Titian, Annibale writes: “The ignorant Vasari doesn’t realize that the good ancient masters based their works on life, and he would have it rather that it is better to draw things at one remove, which antiques are, than it is the first and most fundamental things, which are living, and which one must always imitate. But this fellow didn’t understand this art.” See Weston-Lewis, “Annibale,” 287. See also Carl Goldstein, Visual Fact Over Verbal Fiction: A Study of the Carracciand the Criticism,Theory, and Practice of Art in Renaissance and Baroque Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 164ff. 54 ? Ibid., 13. Baldinucci tells us that while Bernini was working on the figure in his own likeness, Cardinal Barberini would come to his studio to hold the mirror for him!

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recognize it when the opportunity arises.”55 It was his concern

for a heightened reality that allowed Bernini to synthesize

antique and contemporary sources with such dynamic effect.

Combining his observation of nature with a profound respect of

the ideal found in antiquity, Bernini’s sculptural technique

closely mimics the praise Bellori offered Annibale’s ability to

combine nature with the supreme excellence of tradition.

Another topic written of Annibale’s synthetic style was his

bridging of the disegno-color schism that existed in contemporary

debates over the supremacy of North vs. Central Italian pictorial

traditions. Agucchi wrote of Annibale: “He proposed on his

arrival in Rome, to unite the mastery of design of the Roman

school with the beauty of color of the Lombard.”56 Chantelou

records Bernini’s opinions on the matter when he describes the

lean, tight style of French painters, and how they would do well

55 ? Ibid., 77.56 ? Robert Engass and Jonathan Brown, Italian and Spanish Art, 1600-1750: Sources and Documents (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1992), 30; Agucchi’s early seicento writings and theories could have been familiar to the young Bernini through their common affiliation in the Papal circles in early seventeenth century Rome; Agucchi has commented in writing that Bassano portrayed the worst of artists, while Bernini was also known to comment on his dislike of Bassano. See Chantelou, Diary, 238.

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to study the works of the Lombard School. While the Lombards,

whose style tended to be heavy and coarse should study the

elegant designs of Raphael in order to rectify their poor sense

of proportion and order.57

It was Bernini’s experience with painting and his

translation of painters like Annibale that allowed him to

transform and elevate the art of sculpture. Hibbard notes

Bernini’s technical virtuosity of capturing the dramatic imagery

of painting in marble; in essence, it was his ability to

virtually paint in stone that allowed for his broader conception

of sculpture than that of his predecessors.58 Domenico Bernini

states that his father’s study of painting allowed for his

remarkable ability to treat stone as if it were wax.59 And,

Baldinucci comments on Bernini’s continual study of painting,

referring especially to “the handeling of color, since he already

57 ? Chantelou, Diary, 192.58 ? Hibbard, Bernini, 8859 ? Maarten Delbeke, “Gianlorenzo Bernini’s Bel Composto: The Unification of Life and Work in Biography and Historiography,” inBernini’s Biographies: Critical Essays, ed. Maarten Delbeke et al. (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2006), 261,263-64.

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mastered disegno.”60 Baldinucci continues to describe Bernini’s

ability as follows,

Before Bernini’s and our own day there was perhaps never

anyone who manipulated marble with more facility and boldness.

He gave his works a marvelous softness from which many great men

who worked in Rome during his time learned. Through it he

demonstrated that he had overcome the great difficulty of

making the marble, so to say, flexible and of finding a way

to combine painting and sculpture, something that had not been

done by other artists.61

It was Annibale’s reputation for uniting ideal design with

ideal color that provided the motivation for Bernini’s synthesis

of sculpture and painting. The best example of this ability and

Bernini’s new concept of sculpture would be his St. Longinus. The

Longinus is of monumental stature and meant to be viewed from a

60 ? Baldinucci, Life, 15. Bernini’s favorable view of paintingwas such that, despite his known preference for the art of sculpture and it’s capabilities, he sometimes spoke of the advantage of painting: “Bernini declared that painting was superior to sculpture, since sculpture shows that which exists with more dimensions while painting shows that which does not exist, that is, it shows relief where there is no relief and gives an effect of distance where there is none.” Ibid., 79. 61 ? Ibid., 75.

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distance. His gestures are clear and dramatic with a strong play

of light and dark noticeable in the drapery. Because of its size

(it measures fourteen and a half feet high)62, Bernini could not

fuss with minute details and instead focused on the broad

contrast of forms. This he achieved by covering the entire

surface of stone with a ridged texture. The larger folds of

drapery are carved deep and coarse with a three toothed chisel

producing grooves that, when viewed from afar, create a dramatic

modulation of light. The areas of the face and arms have a much

finer striation, which catch and diffuse the light in different

amounts depending on their depth. This generates an optic effect

similar to the rich chiaroscuro seen in many sixteenth and

seventeenth century paintings.63

This textual coloring also resembles the dramatic lighting

evident in the works of the Lombard painters of whom Bernini

expressed his admiration. The rough brushwork and vibrant colors

seen in works by Titian could be equated to these rough carved

62 ? Statistical information on this work can be found in Wittkower, Bernini, 250-25163 ? Hibbard, Bernini, 80-84; See also Hans Kauffmann, “Bernini’sSt. Longinus,” in Bernini in Perspective, ed. George C. Bauer (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976), 104-108.

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striations that, up close appear sloppy, but at a distance

resolve to create a vigorous effect.64 Three other statues were

carved for the niches under the dome of St. Peter’s with their

results not nearly as effective as Bernini’s St. Longinus. The

finer details and traditional finish of these works tend to

flatten out the play of light and shadow when viewed from a

distance. For example one can see in Mochi’s St. Veronica that the

folds in her drapery appear as mere hairlines in contrast to the

deep variations caught in St. Longinus’s lively robe.65

This painterly handling of the stone evident in Longinus was

combined with an innovative design in which Bernini infused both

Renaissance and Mannerist influences. The action depicted in

Longinus’s gesture seems to deny the restrictive capabilities of

the marble from which it is carved. Although meant to be viewed

from one frontal perspective, the sculpture is made up of five

pieces and transcends the block-like shape of marble in which

64 ? See Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Artists trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella (Oxford, 1991), 504: On Titian’s later works Vasari comments, “His last works are executed with such large and bold brush-strokes and in such broad outlines thatthey cannot be seen from close up but appear perfect from a distance.”65 ? Hibbard, Bernini, 84.

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Michelangelo believed his figures were enclosed.66 Bernini used

inspiration from earlier mannerist sculpture, allowing elements

to be released from their containment within the block of marble.

However, while many mannerist works, such as Giambologna’s Rape of

the Sabine Women, were meant to be viewed from multiple angles,

Bernini opted for the more pictorial single viewpoint of

Renaissance sculpture to attain a more immediate experience with

the work.67 He appropriated what he wanted from both styles in

order to unveil a sense of dramatic emotion in his figure that

actively engages with the surrounding space, as well as with the

viewer.

For what started in the Borghese gallery works and

culminated in the St. Longinus, Bernini was able to involve

viewers as emotional participants in the meraviglia, or wonder,

they saw before them. This was done in an eclectic method

similar to that Carracci artist he so often praised during his

documented trip to Paris. In this paper I endeavored to show how

the legendary status of an artist could affect the ideas and 66 ? Ibid., 85-86.67 For more on Bernini’s St. Longinus, see Hibbard, Bernini, 80-88; Kaufmann, “Bernini’s St. Longinus,” 104-108; and Wittkower, Bernini, 56- 57, 250-251.

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works of another. In this case, the art writing of Annibale

Carracci created an image of the perfect artist who was able to

synthesize only the ideal qualities of other masters, enabling

him to rise above the rest. Bernini’s reception of Annibale’s

legendary status is evident in the numerous anecdotes present in

the Chantelou diary and early biographies, of which he most

likely knew of or even created, as well as in the stylistic

methods of his own unique work. Bernini’s early practice

exhibits precisely those qualities made famous by the Carracci

texts, through which he was able to reach a level of artistic

virtuosity in sculpture like no other before him, and the man who

led him to that echelon was not a sculptor, but a painter.

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