Bernini and the Barberini: soon a major exhibition in Rome – Rome – Arte.it

Roma – Reconsider the birth of the Baroque through the privileged lens of the personal and intellectual dialogue between Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Maffeo Barberini, his first and most decisive client, elected Pope in 1623 under the name Urban VIII.
It is one of the objectives of the long-awaited exhibition entitled Bernini and the Barberinicurated by Andrea Bacchi and Maurizia Cicconi. Can be visited from February 12 to June 14 at the National Galleries of Ancient Art.
Created with the support of the main partner Intesa Sanpaolo and with the patronage of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano, the exhibition coincides with the four hundredth anniversary of the inauguration of the new St. Peter’s Basilica (1626), one of the highest moments of the Roman Baroque and Bernini’s activity. In a still open debate on the origins of the Baroque – between those who place it around 1600, with Carracci and Caravaggio, and those who see its full confirmation in the 1630s with Bernini, Pietro da Cortona and Borromini – the exhibition finds its fulcrum in the relationship between the artist and Cardinal Barberini, placing itself in continuity with the recent exhibitions of Palazzo Barberini dedicated to the Barberinis and their artistic context. The sovereign image (2023) e Caravaggio 2025. Divided into six sections, the route focuses on Bernini’s career, following him from his beginnings to his full maturity, through masterpieces borrowed from museums and private collections, many of which are being exhibited in Italy for the first time.

Pietro Bernini and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Putto with Dragon, circa 1617, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Marble, 87.SA.42

Fundamental works such as Saint Sebastian of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid and the Putto with dragon from the Getty Museum you will find special loans such as The Four Seasons from the Aldobrandini Collection, allowing us to delve deeper into the comparison between his father Pietro Bernini, sculptor and artist, and his son Gian Lorenzo. On the occasion of the Roman event, the gallery of portraits of Barberini’s ancestors will arrive for the first time at Palazzo Barberini, marble masterpieces sculpted by Bernini, Giuliano Finelli and Francesco Mochi, now distributed in public and private collections.

The memory of Urban VIII will instead be remembered through marble and bronze busts, combined with one of the few paintings definitively attributed to Gian Lorenzo. In fact, the exhibition also examines Bernini as a painter. The accompanying piece by Andrea Sacchi is exhibited alongside an important ‘public’ painting (both works are exceptional loans from the National Gallery in London). There will be no shortage of drawings, engravings and models revealing the role of the artist on the major construction sites of St. Peter’s Basilica, from the Baldacchino to the conversion of the cruise to the funerary monument of Urban VIII. A broader look at the taste of Barberini, promoted by Apes Urbanae, concludes the journey. In dialogue with the master there will also be other artists of the period, including Guido Reni, and rarely exhibited busts, such as those of Thomas Baker from the Victoria and Albert Museum and of Costanza Bonarelli from the Bargello National Museum, as well as masterpieces by Alessandro Algardi and Francois Duquesnoy.