Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo

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Bernini was born in Naples. At the age of seven he accompanied his 
father to Rome, where his father was involved in several high profile 
projects. There as a boy, his skill was soon noticed, and Bernini gained 
the patronage under Cardinal Borghese, the pope’s nephew. His first 
works were inspired by antique Hellenistic sculpture. Rapidly he rose to 
prominence as a sculptor. Among the early works for the cardinal were 
decorative pieces for the garden.
At the end of April 1665, at the height of his fame and powers, he 
travelled to Paris. Bernini’s international popularity was such that on 
his walks in Paris the streets were lined with admiring crowds.
Bernini’s architectural conceits include the piazza and colonnades of 
St. Peter’s. He planned several Roman palaces.
Bernini’s first architectural project was the magnificent bronze 
St. Peter’s baldachin (1624–1633) and the canopy over the high altar of 
St. Peter’s Basilica.
Bernini did not build many churches from scratch, preferring instead 
to concentrate on the embellishment of pre-existing structures. Bernini 
also revolutionized marble busts, lending glamorous dynamism to once 
stony stillness of portraiture. He died in Rome in 1680.
4. Borromini, Francesco, by name of Francesco Castelli (September 
25, 1599 – August 3, 1667) was a prominent and influential Italian 
Baroque architect in Rome.
Son of the stone mason, Borromini began his career as a stone mason 
himself, and soon moved to Milan to study and practise this activity. 
When in Rome (1619) he changed his name (from Castelli to Borromini) 
and started working for Carlo Maderno, his distant relative, at 
St. Peter’s. When Maderno died in 1629, he joined the group under 
Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, completing the facade and expansions of 
Maderno’s Palazzo Barberini.
Borromini’s first major independent commission was the reconstruction 
in 1634–1637 of the interior spaces of the church and adjacent buildings 
of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (also called San Carlino); the facade 
of the small church would be completed by Borromini much later, at 
the end of his career. The small church is considered by many an iconic 
masterpiece of Roman Baroque.
In 1640–1650, he worked on the design of the church of Sant’Ivo alla 
Sapienza and its courtyard, near University of Rome La Sapienza palace.
In the summer of 1667, in Rome, after the completion of the Falconieri 
chapel (the main chapel) in San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Borromini, 

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suffering from nervous disorders and depression, injured himself in 
a way that caused his death. He was buried in the tomb of his uncle 
in the crypt of this church. Francesco Borromini was featured on the 
100 Swiss franc banknote current in the 1980s.

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