Bernini’s Rome
No artist left a greater mark on the city than the great baroque sculptor and architect. Loyd Grossman follows in his footsteps
Before we start… Wear comfortable shoes. The sampietrini – little basalt blocks – that pave the streets of Rome are beautiful to look at, but hell on the feet. Allow frequent stops for coffee, mineral water and aperitivi: Rome was not walked in a day.
It is almost impossible to devise a non-bernini walking tour of Rome: no artist has ever left such a mark on a city.
Throughout his very long – he lived to be 81, a considerable age in the 17th century – and varied career as a sculptor, architect, town planner and designer, Bernini adorned Rome with buildings, fountains, tombs and monuments.
In the age of Rembrandt, Velázquez and Rubens, Bernini was the most highly regarded artist in Europe with the greatest patrons of all, a succession of opulent, free-spending Popes.
I hope that you have already visited or will visit the Galleria Borghese, which displays Bernini’s great mythological pieces and his David. You will also want to visit the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria where the centrepiece of Bernini’s Cornaro Chapel is his shockingly orgasmic Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. What follows is a deep dive into Bernini that can be done in a day.
A good beginning is Piazza del Popolo and an early-morning coffee sitting on the terrace of the Caffè Canova, looking across the square to the Porta del Popolo, for centuries the entrance to Rome for visitors from the north.
The façade of the Porta was redesigned by Bernini in 1655 to welcome the arrival of the abdicated Queen Christina of Sweden. Daughter of the Protestant hero Gustavus Adolphus and newly converted to Catholicism, Christina was a top-hole papal trophy; hence the inscription on the gate commemorating ‘a happy and propitious entrance’.
Unfortunately, Christina turned out to be a troublesome guest, forever demanding, forever plotting.
Just to the right of the gateway is the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, full of treasures including two fine Caravaggios, but our attention is to the Chigi Chapel, burial place of Pope Alexander VII’S forebears. Designed, but not finished, by Raphael, the chapel was taken on by Bernini at the Pope’s request. He created two pyramidal Chigi monuments and two superb statues, Habakkuk and Daniel. A particular delight is the beauty of Habakkuk’s picnic basket.
Leave the church and, with the Porta del Popolo at your back, you will face the trident of three great streets radiating out from the square. The central Corso, once the scene of annual races, is now the Oxford Street (filling up once more POST-COVID) of Rome and so avoidable.
Take the left-hand street, Via del Babuino, full of fancy shops. You will pass the Anglican church, which has nothing to do with Bernini but is well worth a visit: sturdy brick Gothic revival by G E Street, the architect of London’s Royal Courts of Justice.
Carry on to the Piazza di Spagna, site of the delightful Barcaccia fountain, designed in the shape of a half-sunken hull and lying slightly below street level. It is attributed principally to Bernini’s father, Pietro, a skilled but uninventive sculptor; too good for him, it must have had significant input from his son.
Climb the Spanish Steps, admire the view, avoid the selfie-stick-sellers, head down the Via Sistina and turn right on the corner of Via del Quirinale. On the corner stands San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, the masterpiece of Bernini’s great architectural rival Borromini and maybe the finest Baroque church in Rome.
Poor Borromini. Unlike Bernini, who was a skilful courtier, sharp businessman, good company and a great artist to boot, the supremely talented
Borromini was moody and charmless. He even botched his suicide. Having failed to die instantly, he was at least allowed to be buried in a church.
Carry on down the road to Sant’andrea al Quirinale, built by Bernini for the Jesuits from the late 1650s. Bernini claimed it was the only one of his works that satisfied him: don’t forget he was a master of false modesty. It is a magnificent manipulation of space and an uplifting, emotional and, for those so inclined, religious experience.
Note the sculpture of Saint Andrew flying heavenwards, by Antonio Raggi, one of Bernini’s principal assistants. And don’t miss the lavish marble pavement coat of arms of Cardinal Camillo Pamphili, who paid for the church – such patrons were keen to advertise permanently their piety and philanthropy.
There is now just time before lunch to cut through the backstreets behind Sant’andrea, around the Viminale – the smallest of Rome’s more than seven hills – and head to Santa Maria Maggiore, one of Rome’s four major basilicas.
Soon after moving from Naples to Rome, Bernini Senior began work on the Pauline Chapel at Santa Maria Maggiore, which Pope Paul V intended as an unequivocal statement of papal power and a testimony to the wealth and importance of his family, the Borghese.
Back in the main body of the church, to the right of the high altar, a modest stone marks the burial place of the Bernini family.
One of my favourite Roman churches is just round the corner. Santa Prassede has outstanding, early Christian mosaics, particularly in the little, ninth-century chapel of Saint Zeno, as well as a moving relic of dubious authenticity, the column of Christ’s flagellation.
On one of the church’s nave pillars there is a smaller-than-life-size funerary bust of the papal functionary Giovanni Santoni – slickly executed and unremarkable except for being the work of the child prodigy Bernini, carved when he was not yet a teenager.
It is now seriously time for lunch. The best local option is Trattoria Monti, with very good cooking from the Le Marche region. Or grab a cab and head towards the Pantheon. Do not on any account go to the tourist-trap restaurants in the Pantheon square. Nearby, Armando al Pantheon serves excellent Roman classics; slightly further afield, Enoteca Corsi is rough and ready, delicious and great fun.
Proceed to the Piazza della Minerva to admire the Elephant and Obelisk, Bernini’s most charming work and a tribute to his great friend Pope Alexander VII. The church opposite, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, is the only Gothic church in Rome and worth a long visit to admire the tomb of Fra Angelico and Filippino Lippi’s beautiful frescoes in the Carafa Chapel.
Leaving the square, window-shop at Ditta Gammarelli, tailors and haberdashers to Popes, cardinals and lesser clergy. There is now a brief walk to Piazza Navona, centrepiece of Pope Innocent X’s neighbourhood and site of Bernini’s colossal Fountain of the Four Rivers. This is both powerful, Churchtriumphant rhetoric and mind-boggling engineering, posing a 17-yard-high, granite obelisk above a sculptural void and thought by many – including me – to have inspired the Eiffel Tower.
Unlike all the cross-bearing obelisks in Rome, this provides a perch for a sculptured dove, symbol of the Pamphili family: a fine example of papal modesty.
Head towards the river. Look out for Castel Sant’angelo and cross via the bridge leading to it, the Ponte Sant’angelo, which has carried traffic across the river since the second century and is embellished with ten statues of angels to Bernini’s design.
Turn left and walk towards Saint Peter’s Basilica, along monumental, uninspiring Via della Conciliazione – a textbook example of Mussolini-era town planning – which brings you into Bernini’s Saint Peter’s Square with its encircling, saint-topped colonnade, representing, in Bernini’s conception, the embracing arms of the Church.
The greatest square in the world? You decide, over a Negroni.