Luigi Bernini
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The son of Pietro Bernini and his wife Angelica Galante, he was born after the couple moved to Rome in 1605. He trained in his elder brother Gian Lorenzo's workshop and assisted him on several works such as the Baldacchino of St Peter's and the 1626 angel for the high altar in Sant'Agostino in Campo Marzio. Luigi had an affair with his brother Gian Lorenzo Bernini's wife Costanza Piccolomini Bonarelli. In the summer of 1638 Gian Lorenzo found out about Costanza and his brother, and in a fit of mad fury, he chased Luigi through the streets of Rome, attacked Luigi with a crowbar, breaking two of his ribs, and then with a sword. Luigi saved himself in his flight by taking sanctuary in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.[2] Gian Lorenzo then sent a servant to slash Costanza's face with a razor, a traditional punishment for a woman who had offended a man's honour.[3] Costanza was imprisoned for adultery and fornication in the monastery of Casa Pia, the servant was exiled, as was Luigi Bernini to protect him, and Gian Lorenzo Bernini was fined 3,000 scudi.[4]
Luigi once again brought scandal to his family in 1670 by raping a young Bernini workshop assistant at the construction site of the 'Constantine' memorial in St. Peter's Basilica.[5]
Works
Bernini designed the 7-hectare gardens of Valsanzibio, where visitors to the garden arrived by gondola to a doorway of sculptures within sculptures within sculptures.[6]
References
- ↑ McPhee, Sarah (2002-01-01). Bernini and the Bell Towers: Architecture and Politics at the Vatican. Yale University Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-300-08982-0.
- ↑ Mormando 2011, pp. 99–106 See also F. Mormando, ed. and trans., Domenico Bernini, Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, University Park, Penn State Univ. Press, 2011, p. 113 and accompanying notes. For further information about Costanza (before and after her affair with Bernini), see the comprehensive and fully documented biography by Sarah McPhee, Bernini's Beloved: A Portrait of Costanza Piccolomini (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012); McPhee found no indication whatsoever of any further interaction between Bernini and Costanza after the explosive conclusion to their affair, and no indication of any children born as a result of that relationship.
- ↑ Simon Schama "When stone came to life"
- ↑ Sarah McPhee, Bernini's Beloved, pp. 149–50, 320–21, 325.
- ↑ As Bernini scholar, Franco Mormando, underscores (Domenico Bernini: Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini Intro., pp. 60–61): "Any discussion of Bernini's religion, that is, his personal faith and the practice of his devotional life, must open with a word of caution: we have absolutely no reliable, nonpartisan (that is, not coming from Bernini, his family, or apologetic biographers) documentation on the topic until 1665, when Chantelou began writing his diary" (at which time Bernini was 67 years old). For Luigi's 1670 crime, see Mormando 2011, pp. 307–312.
- ↑ Daddario, Will (2017-06-02). Baroque, Venice, Theatre, Philosophy. Springer. pp. 27–28. ISBN 978-3-319-49523-1.
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