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Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 9
Lesson 2: Italy- Restoring ancient sculpture in Baroque Rome
- Bernini, Pluto and Proserpina
- Bernini, David
- Bernini, David
- Bernini, David
- Bernini, Apollo and Daphne
- Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Baldacchino
- Bernini, Bust of Medusa
- Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
- Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
- Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
- Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Cathedra Petri (Chair of St. Peter)
- Bernini, Saint Peter's Square
- Bernini, Sant'Andrea al Quirinale
- Geometry and motion in Borromini's San Carlo
- Carracci, Christ Appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way
- Caravaggio, Narcissus at the Source
- Caravaggio, Calling of Saint Matthew
- Caravaggio, Calling of St. Matthew
- Caravaggio, The Conversion of St. Paul (or The Conversion of Saul)
- Caravaggio, Crucifixion of Saint Peter
- Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus
- Caravaggio, Deposition
- Caravaggio, Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness
- Caravaggio, The Flagellation of Christ
- Caravaggio, Death of the Virgin
- Caravaggio and Caravaggisti in 17th-Century Europe
- Reni, Aurora
- Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes
- Gentileschi, Judith and Holofernes
- Gentileschi, Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes
- Gentileschi, Conversion of the Magdalene
- Elisabetta Sirani, Portia Wounding her Thigh
- Guercino, Saint Luke Displaying a Painting of the Virgin
- Il Gesù, including Triumph of the Name of Jesus ceiling fresco
- Pozzo, Saint Ignatius Chapel, Il Gesù
- Pozzo, Glorification of Saint Ignatius, Sant'Ignazio
- The altar tabernacle, Pauline Chapel, Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome
- Pierre Le Gros the Younger, Stanislas Kostka on his Deathbed
- Baroque art in Italy
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Bernini, Saint Peter's Square
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Saint Peter's Square (Piazza San Pietro), Vatican City, Rome, 1656-67
Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- Did the obelisk in the center of the piazza come from ancient Egypt, or was it too, like the classical architecture, inspired by previous styles?(16 votes)
- Yes, it was transported to Rome by Caligula in 37 AD. The Vatican Obelisk was originally created in Heliopolis around 2400 BC. Augustus had it moved to Alexandria during his reign. In 37 AD, Caligula had the obelisk moved to Rome and placed in the Circus of Nero, which is about where the Vatican is today. In 1586, it was moved to it's current location by Domenico Fontana for Pope Sixtus V.(24 votes)
- Dr. Zucker sounds like he is shivering....(5 votes)
- I may have been shivering. It was a cold, rainy day in February when we recorded this.(14 votes)
- Was Bernini (or presumably his studio) responsible for all of the figures as well?(6 votes)
- They were made by his disciples, and mainly by Lazzaro Morelli and Giovanni Maria de Rossi with the participation of others.(5 votes)
- I love this site. Not only the videos are great, but there's always a piece of information I don't find on books. While studying Art History at University, I find them quite useful and watch them often as a dinamic break from the sometimes tedious reading.(7 votes)
- Who was the pope when this was designed?(3 votes)
- I know the colonnades are supposed to represent the Church's embrace, but (I may be thinking too far into this) from above the view reminds me of a keyhole. Traditionally, St. Peter was given the keys to heaven, and since this is St. Peter's Square, the symbolism would make sense. Does this sound plausible to anyone else?(3 votes)
- At: who are the figures above the columns? They seem rather important, maybe other popes or something. 2:35(2 votes)
- In the square in front of St. Peter's at the Vatican there is a brick that has the eternal heart carved on it. It is just one of the hundreds of thousands of bricks that make up the plaza. It was purportedly carved by someone famous (Michelangelo or Bernini or other). Can you direct me to a resource that would have a picture of this brick? I was told tourist make a point of seeking out this brick when they visit St. Peter's Plaza. Thank you in advance.(1 vote)
- How long did it take to build this?(1 vote)
- It took about 10 years I beleave, but they planned this long before they started building it.(1 vote)
- At about, they remark that the pediments at the ends of the colonnades hark back to ancient Rome and Greece. So does the array of sculptures on the top of those colonnades. Sculptures often topped public buildings and lined the sides of pools. 1:50(1 vote)
Video transcript
(upbeat funky music) - [Narrator] We're standing
in the magnificent piazza designed by Bernini in the 17th century in front of the Basilica of St. Peter's in the Vatican in Rome. - [Narrator] The piazza
is filled with chairs and people exiting after Pope
Francis gave an audience. - [Narrator] And that's exactly
the purpose of this piazza, this grand public space
designed by Bernini, to hold vast numbers of
people who would come here to see the pope. - [Narrator] This site on Vatican Hill, across the Tiber from central Rome, had held the ancient Roman
circus of the Emperor Nero and it was here that St. Peter was buried, and around his grave was
built the great early church, the first St. Peter's built
by Emperor Constantine. - [Narrator] The church we
refer to as the old St. Peter's, and this is a church
that dates to the time of the High Renaissance to the early 1500s to the patronage of Pope Julius II who is also responsible for
other amazing things here like commissioning Michelangelo
to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or commissioning Raphael to paint frescoes in the stanza here in the Papal Palace. Bernini's piazza dates to
more than 100 years later. - [Narrator] A lot had taken
place during that 100 years. Most significantly Martin Luther sparks the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Church
responds with what is known as the Counter-Reformation. This piazza is central to understanding Counter-Reformation architecture. - [Narrator] The church
recognized that art could be used to inspire the faithful and this piazza reaches
out to do just that. In fact those are Bernini's words. He said, "These are the
motherly arms of the church, "reaching out to embrace the faithful "and to reunite heretics with the church," and those heretics that
Bernini was referring to are the Protestants. Those Christians who broke
away from the authority of the pope in Rome in the 16th century. - [Narrator] 500 years later
these double colonnades are still embracing the faithful as we saw earlier today. The geometry of the space
is clearly no longer the idealized geometry
of the High Renaissance. This is not squares and circles. We're now seeing ovals or
ellipses and trapezoids. This is a more dynamic
and more complex geometry. - [Narrator] Well, think about it. Here we have, as we
look across the piazza, the High Renaissance church
as designed by Bramante and then redesigned by
Michelangelo and Raphael, but that's a church that stands alone. What Bernini did was activate the church so that it no longer was static, but something that
moved out into the space in front of the church, moved out into the space of the viewer, and reached out to embrace us. - [Narrator] In fact the piazza
reaches out into the city. It creates a transitional space between the secular space of the city and the spiritual space of the Basilica. - [Narrator] What we
have essentially are two in a way arms or wings that reach out from the church itself, and those open up into
this vast oval space at the center of which
is an ancient obelisk -- - [Narrator] From Egypt. - [Narrator] And two gorgeous fountains sparkling with water on either side. - [Narrator] This creates
a longitudinal axis that perfectly incorporates
this existing architecture. - [Narrator] This oval is
comprised of a colonnade that is four rows of columns that are massive in scale. - [Narrator] These are made
of drums of travertine, round drums of stone that are stacked up one atop the other. - [Narrator] They are in the Tuscan order. That is they are very simple and unfluted. They're not decorated
with those vertical lines that we see in the Doric
order, for example, and for me what that does
is it keeps the space of the piazza simple and
focuses our attention on the facade of the
Basilica of St. Peters. - [Narrator] The whiteness
of the travertine of Bernini's columns makes
my eyes more sensitive to the multiple colors
that we see in Maderno's facade of the Basilica. - [Narrator] If we follow
the colonnades around to the very end, we wee that they end in
very simple temple fronts. They look like ancient Greek temples with columns carrying a frieze and a pediment above that. Very simple to create this
vast, welcoming public space. - [Narrator] A space that
is a perfect synthesis of symbolism and utility. (upbeat funky music)