Through the patronage of Pope Urban VIII Barberini (1623-1644), Innocent X Pamphili (1644-1655), Alexander VII Chigi (1655-1667) and Clement IX Rospigliosi (1667-1669), Gian Lorenzo Bernini had created one of the biggest artistic workshops in the history of Rome. It must have been a true industry which could melt and cast tons of bronze taken from the Pantheon and transport and carve the enormous amount of travertine stone coming from the quarries of Tivoli. A myriad of talented artists and assistants were engaged for the purpose of decorating the recently completed Basilica of Saint Peter, the biggest church in Christendom.

This lecture will investigate the execution of the Baldaquin which signals the Tomb of the Apostle Peter, the Crossing with the giant piers dedicated to Veronica, Andrew, Longinus and Helen, the Cathedra Petri (Throne of Peter), Piazza San Pietro, and the Bridge of Castel Sant’Angelo. These different commissions, completed in about 40 years, are connected and aligned by an incredible sense of unity along a path which from the Bridge, access to the citadel of the Vatican, to the Throne, symbol of the end of time and final Judgement, is ushered by the presence of angels in crescendo as if the visitor (ideally a pilgrim in Baroque Rome) was invited to experience an elevated realm with eucharistic and eschatological meanings. The whole path was activated when the pope celebrated mass on the main altar, a sort of theatrum sacrum (sacred theatre) which irradiated from the Tomb of the Apostle throughout the city and the world.

Dr. Paolo Alei is an art historian from Rome. He is Professor of art history at the University of California (the UCEAP academic program in Italy) and Curator of the Museum of the Castle of Bracciano near Rome. He has a Master from Columbia University where he specialized on Venetian Renaissance Painting and a PhD from Oxford University where he completed a dissertation on the influence of the Natural History by Pliny the Elder on Italian Renaissance art. He has published several essays on Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio, and a book on the history of the Venice Carnival. Recently, he coedited a monumental book about the patronage of the Orsini family in Central Italy. He is co-organizer of EMR (Early Modern Rome), one of the greatest conferences about Renaissance and Baroque culture.