Visible Spirit

The Art of
Gianlorenzo Bernini

Vol. II

Irving Lavin

The Pindar Press

London 2009
 Published by The Pindar Press
40 Narcissus Road
London NW6 1TH · UK

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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 Contents

XVII Bernini and Antiquity — The Baroque Paradox:

A Poetical View 645

XVIII Bernini’s Portraits of No-Body 681

XIX The Roma Alessandrina of Richard Krautheimer 748

XX ‘Impresa quasi impossibile’: The Making of

Bernini’s Bust of Francesco I d’Este 757

XXI Bernini’s Bust of the Medusa: An Awful Pun 789

XXII Bernini’s Bust of the Savior and the Problem of

the Homeless in Seventeenth-Century Rome 849

XXIII Bernini’s Image of the Ideal Christian Monarch 917

XXIV Bernini’s Bumbling Barberini Bees 955

XXV Bernini-Bozzetti: One More, One Less. A Berninesque

Sculptor in Mid-Eighteenth Century France 1018

XXVI Bernini’s Death: Visions of Redemption 1046

XXVII The Rome of Alexander VII: Bernini and the

Reverse of the Medal 1087

XXVIII The Young Bernini 1127

XXIX ‘Bozzetto Style’: The Renaissance Sculptor’s
Handiwork 1174

XXX The Regal Gift: Bernini and his Portraits of

Royal Subjects 1234

XXXI Urbanitas urbana: The Pope, the Artist, and

the Genius of the Place 1267

XXXII The Baldacchino. Borromini vs Bernini: Did Borromini

Forget Himself? 1336

Bibliography 1385

Index 1397
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 1

XVIII

Bernini’s Portraits of No-Body*

S OME of Bernini’s most innovative works owe their novelty in part to the
revival of much earlier traditions. A notable case is the pair of busts por-
traying blessed and damned souls (Anima Beata and Anima Dannata) in
which Bernini explored what might be described as the two extreme reac-
tions to the prospect of death (Figs. 1, 2).1 Bernini presumably made the
sculptures in 1619 (when he was twenty-two), at the behest of a Spanish
prelate, Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya, for whose tomb in the Spanish
national church in Rome, San Giacomo degli Spagnoli, Bernini carved the
portrait in 1622.2 Montoya died in 1630, and two years later the busts were
bequeathed by a certain Fernando Botinete to the Confraternity of the
Resurrection at San Giacomo, of which Montoya had also been a member.
The purpose of the sculptures is unknown, but their subject is appropriate
for a confraternity devoted to the Resurrection, for which Montoya may
have intended them from the outset; a further possibility is that Montoya
intended them eventually to decorate his tomb. The souls of the dead are
portrayed life-size, al vivo in contemporary terminology, an irony that was
surely deliberate.
Such powerful physiognomical and expressive contrasts have an ancient
history, occurring, like Beauty and the Beast, on opposite sides of certain

* First presented in March 1987 in a colloquium at the University of Maryland honor-

ing my friend George Levitine, to whom it is now sadly dedicated in memoriam.
1
See Wittkower, 1981, 177, no. 7.
2
See Lavin, ‘Five Youthful Sculptures,’ 1968, 239 f, and Appendix A. New documen-
tary evidence presented here supports the 1619 date proposed by Wittkower for the Anime
busts on stylistic grounds.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 2

682

Greek coins of the fourth century B.C. (Fig. 3), and, juxtaposed, in the
familiar masks of Comedy and Tragedy from the classical theater (Fig. 4).3
In both cases the focus is on the face alone and one, male, is distorted in a
wild and grimacing shout, while the other, female, is beautiful and por-
trayed as if transmitting some lofty, portentous truth. The masks are par-
ticularly relevant because, like Bernini’s busts, they have generic as well as
specific meaning: they symbolize their respective theatrical genres, but they
also represent the actual roles or characters the actors performed — the
ancients called them personas. The masks stand for heroic types, however,
not real people, as do Bernini’s sculptures. This reference to ordinary peo-
ple relates the busts to the participants in those great medieval visualizations
of the Last Judgment in which the souls of the resurrected dead are weighed
by St. Michael and go, joyously or pathetically, to their fates (Fig. 5).
Three points above all distinguish Bernini’s sculptures not only from
these precedents, but from all precedents, as far as I know. The souls are
portrayed not as masks or full-length figures but as busts, they are isolated
from any narrative context, and they are independent, freestanding sculp-
tures. The images are thus blatantly self-contradictory. They constitute a
deliberate art-historical solecism, in which Bernini adopted a classical,
pagan form invented expressly to portray the external features of a specific
individual, to represent a Christian abstract idea referring to the inner
nature of every individual. My purpose in this chapter is to shed some light
on the background of these astonishing works and their significance in the
history of our human confrontation with our own end.
Among the intense mystical exercises enjoined upon the pious in the late
Middle Ages was to contemplate death. Often regarded as a morbid symp-
tom of decadence at the end of the Age of Faith, this preoccupation in fact
reflected a positive, indeed optimistic, view that people could provide for

3
On the coins, see Head, 1911, 805; G. F. Hill, 1914, lxxxviii f, 182 f, Pl. XX, 1–3. The
few instances of coins with facing heads on both sides (Baldwin, 1908–9, 130) nearly all
involve male-female confrontations. For the mosaic, found on the Aventine in Rome, see
Bieber, 1920, 162, no. 137. Theater masks were sometimes actually associated with portrait
busts, as on a Roman sarcophagus in the Camposanto at Pisa which shows three masks, a
youth, a female and a grizzled Pan, beneath a medallion containing busts of a man and his
wife (Aries et al., 1977, 114 ff ). Among the classical precedents revived and much illustrated,
often as bust portraits, from the Renaissance on were the philosophers Democritus and
Heraclitus who, respectively, laughed and wept at the foibles of the world).
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BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 683

their well-being in the afterlife by looking death in the face. They could pre-
pare for a good death, as it was termed, by putting their affairs in order and
examining their conscience, and they could consider the effect of their atti-
tude and behavior upon God’s just and ineluctable judgment. These two
complementary exhortations, to prepare for death and consider the afterlife,
were converted into veritable techniques for achieving salvation in two of
the most widely distributed books of the fifteenth century, which had
remarkably similar histories. The Ars moriendi (The Art of Dying) pre-
scribed the measures to be taken as life drew to a close, and the Quattuor
novissima (The Four Last Things) described the ultimate events in the cur-
riculum of human existence: death, judgment, damnation, and salvation.4
Although not directly related the first work ends where the second begins.
After their original success The Art of Dying and The Four Last Things (Figs.
6–9), to which most of our attention will be devoted, were largely eclipsed
during the humanistic florescence of the early sixteenth century. Thereafter,
however, these popular eschatologies were retrieved and vigorously culti-
vated by the militant church activists of the Counter-Reformation,5 espe-
cially the Jesuits, who incorporated the Four Last Things into their cate-
chisms. Among the most powerful offensive weapons in the Jesuits’s spiri-
tual arsenal, the catechisms were not theological tracts but served a prima-
rily edificatory purpose, and from the beginning they were frequently
accompanied by illustrations (Figs. 10–13).
There were even instances when the illustrations predominated over
the text, the latter being reduced to brief captions (Figs. 14–17).6
Characteristic of the entire tradition of the Four Last Things illustrations is
that whereas death, following the Ars moriendi, might be confined to a sin-

4
I have discussed the revived Ars moriendi tradition and Bernini’s profound relationship
to it in life and death (1972). On the Ars moriendi, see Delumeau, 1983, 389 ff.
On the Quattuor novissima, see Lane, 1985. My own remarks on the visual tradition of
the Four Last Things, including Bernini’s busts, offer only modest supplements to those in
the excellent article by Malke, 1976.
5
See Franza, 1958; Turrini, 1982. The illustrated catechisms have been studied by
Prosperi, 1985.
6
On the engravings by Theodor Galle after Maarten van Heemskerck, and a painting of
the same theme by Heemskerck, see Grosshans, 1980, 214–43. Other important suites are
by J. B. Wierix after Martin de Vos (Mauquoy-Hendrickx, 1979, II, 271 f ), Hendrik
Goltzius after Johannes Stradanus (Strauss, ed., 1980, 309 f ), Jan Sadeler after Dirck
Barendsz (Judson, 1970, 64 f, 74, 140–42).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 4

684

1. Bernini, Anima Beata. Palazzo di Spagna, Rome

(photo: Vasari 18618).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 5

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 685

2. Bernini, Anima Dannata. Palazzo di Spagna, Rome

(photo: Vasari 18617).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 6

686

3. Female head and head of Bes, obverse and reverse of obolos

from Judea. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Deleperre 3068–69).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 7

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 687

4. Theater masks, mosaic. Capitoline Museum, Rome

(photo: Anderson 1745).

5. Last Judgment, detail. Cathedral, Bourges

(photo: Monuments historiques AH 18902).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 8

688

6, 7. Death, Last Judgment

(from Dionysius, 1482).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 9

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 689

8, 9. Hell, Heaven (from

Dionysius, 1482).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 10

690

10, 11. Death, Last

Judgment
(from Bellarmine, 1614,
112–15).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 11

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 691

12, 13. Hell, Heaven (from

Bellarmine, 1614, 112–15).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 12

692

14, 15. Maarten van

Heemskerck, Death, Last
Judgment, engravings.
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York. The Elisha
Whittelsey Collection, The
Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 13

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 693

16, 17. Maarten van

Heemskerck, Hell, Heaven,
engravings.
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York. The Elisha
Whittelsey Collection, The
Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 14

694

gle individual, the events of the afterlife — judgment, damnation and sal-
vation — were conceived as universal occurrences and shown as panoramic
scenes with many participants.7
Bernini’s sculptures break with this tradition by eliminating the first two
events and focusing instead upon their ethical implications. Moreover,
Bernini conceived of damnation and salvation themselves in a novel way,
describing neither the tortures of hell nor the pleasures of paradise, but
instead concentrating on the single soul and its ‘state of mind.’ Treated as
independent busts, Bernini’s sculptures are ‘soul portraits’: portraits of
Everyman and Everywoman, but of No-body.
As such, the sculptures seem unprecedented on two accounts. Antiquity
might deify certain personal qualities such as piety or magnanimity (Fig.
18), and the Middle Ages might personify certain moral qualities such as
virtues and vices (cf. Fig. 17). The pagan concepts were the subject of reli-
gious cults, and the Christian notions were part of an abstract scheme; but
neither personal nor moral qualities were represented as individual, isolated
sculptured busts. As far as I can determine, the Anima Beata and Anima
Dannata are the first independent images of the soul, and they are the first
independent portrayals of pure psychological states. Most scholars have
been preoccupied with these pyschological states. The sculptures are indeed
prime documents in the history of physiognomical expression in art, key
links in a chain that leads from Leonardo’s studies of grotesque facial types
(Fig. 19 — note especially the juxtaposition of the smiling and howling
heads at the left) and Michelangelo’s explorations of extreme expressions
(Fig. 20), through the quasi-scientific classical tradition represented in the
late sixteenth century by Giambattista della Porta’s book relating animal
and human characterological traits (Fig. 21), to Charles Le Brun’s system-
atic treatment of physiognomics and emotional expression in the mid-
seventeenth century (Figs. 22, 23). The tradition culminated in the eigh-
teenth century with the series of bronze busts by Franz Xavier
Messerschmidt (Figs. 24, 25), in which Bernini’s contrasting pair of object
lessons in affective morality is transformed into an extensive catalogue of
grimacing character masks, including the artist’s own.8

7
In these instances, it seems the purpose was to establish a deliberate link between the
universal character of the Quattuor novissima and the individual focus of the Ars moriendi.
8
Although the moral component of Bernini’s interest in expression was diluted, his posi-
tion in this development is clear. So far as we know, Leonardo’s drawings do not portray any
particular emotions or pattern or system of emotions. Della Porta’s physiognomics are
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BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 695

However important Bernini’s sculptures may be to these scientific and

rhetorical explorations of psycho-physiognomics, his chief interest surely
lay in the ‘interface’ between moral and psychological states, as is apparent
from what must have been one of his direct inspirations for the anime
busts. In 1605 the visual tradition of the Four Last Things had been radi-
cally reinterpreted by the Augsburg printmaker Alexander Mair, who
issued a suite of six engravings on the theme (including the intermediate
state of purgatory) dedicated to the Archbishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria,
Johann Conrad (Figs. 26–31).9 The playing-card-size format of this suite
reflects its individual, ad hominem function; and Mair in fact distilled the
universal scope of the catechistic tradition into a personal, not to say pri-
vate, memento mori in which events are reduced to a few peripheral sym-
bolic details and the subject of the action is one individual. The framed
niche, the close-up view and the bust-length format are all features that
suggest the familiar type of the portrait medallion, especially on tombs
(Fig. 32). Indeed, it might be said, conversely, that Mair here transformed
the traditional portrait medallion into a moral emblem. The emblem is
given a liturgical and sacerdotal cast by the inscriptions, drawn mainly
from the Office for the Dead, and by the image of the Blessed Soul, shown
wearing the surplice of a deacon and a brooch inscribed with the IHS
device of the Jesuit order.

consistent, but they are not really devoted to expression; they attempt, instead, to link vari-
ous physiognomical types with corresponding character types, based on counterparts in the
animal kingdom. Descartes was the first to study human emotions systematically, and it was
Le Brun’s contribution to relate that effort to the visual tradition represented by Leonardo,
Della Porta and Bernini, producing the first systematic exploration of the facial effects of
emotion.
The most recent interpretation of Bernini’s sculptures in this vein, which entails charac-
teristically a focus on the Anima Dannata as a ‘self-representation,’ will be found in a per-
ceptive essay by Preimesberger, 1989, with further references.
On Messerschmidt’s character studies, see Behr et al., 1983.
9
Mair’s engravings are reproduced in Hollstein, 1954—, XXIII, 146 ff, with further bib-
liography. Johann Conrad (1561–1612), who had lived for several years in Italy, was a great
patron of the arts and maintained close ties with the Jesuits; Sax, 1884–85, II, 478–93; H.
A. Braun, 1983, 168 ff. (I am much indebted to Georg Daltrop, professor at the Catholic
University of Eichstätt, for bibliography and other help in this connection). Apart from the
images discussed here, Mair’s ‘emotional’ and seemingly rising skeleton in a medallion frame
(Fig. 27) was an important model for the gesticulating skeletons Bernini later depicted in the
pavement of his Cornaro and Chigi chapels (Lavin, Bernini, 1980, 134 ff ); I hope to explore
this relationship in another context.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 16

696

18. Megalopsychia, mosaic. Antioch (photo: Dept. of Art and Archaeology,

Princeton University).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 17

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 697

19. Leonardo,
grotesque heads,
drawing. Royal
Library, Windsor
Castle.

20. Michelangelo, so-called Anima

Dannata, drawing. Galleria degli
Uffizi, Florence.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 18

698

21. Physiognomical

(from Della Porta,

1586).
types
 Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV
15/11/08
17:04
Page 19

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY

699

22, 23. Charles Le Brun, Amour and Désespoir, drawings. Musée du Louvre, Paris
(photo: Documentation photographique de la Réunion des musées nationaux).
 700
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV
15/11/08
17:04
Page 20

24. Franz Messerschmidt, self-portrait, smiling. 25. Franz Messerschmidt, The Yawner.
Galéria hlavného mesta SSR Bratislavy, Bratislava. Szépmüvészti Múzeum, Budapest.
 Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV
15/11/08
17:04
Page 21

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY

701

26, 27. Alexander Mair, arms of Johann Conrad and Memento mori, engravings. Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich.
 702
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV
15/11/08
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Page 22

28, 29. Alexander Mair, Death and Purgatory, engravings. Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich.
 Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV
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Page 23

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY

703

30, 31. Alexander Mair, Hell and Heaven, engravings. Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 24

704

The expressive force of Mair’s images would have been of particular

interest to Bernini. The souls’ highly charged emotional responses to what
they see, from the howling scream of the damned to the blissful moan of
the saved, were also probably transferred from a domain other than the
engraved Novissima suites. The intensity of the contrast recalls the great
painted altarpieces of Frans Floris, in which the reactions of the participants
are brought to the fore (Fig. 33).
If Bernini knew Mair’s suite of engravings, as I think he did, he trans-
formed them in three ways. He treated them as independent sculptured
busts, he eliminated the narrative elements entirely, and he reduced the
number to a pair, the damned and the saved, male and female, alter egos of
our common humanity. For each innovation there was at least partial prece-
dent. Mair’s powerful images had been made even more vivid in three-
dimensional translations — or rather, re-translations, since they themselves
allude to sculptured medallions — by a once acclaimed but now little
known painter and sculptor, Giovanni Bernardino Azzolini. Azzolini was a
native of Sicily who worked mainly in Naples. He visited Genoa in 1610,
where he modeled in colored wax depictions of the Four Last Things as half
figures, in whose faces transpired ‘the affects of a blessed soul, of another
condemned to suffer but with hope for eternal peace [that is, a soul in pur-
gatory], of a third portraying a skeleton, and of a fourth expressing in a hor-
rid abyss the idea of rabid desperation’ (cf. Figs 46–65).10 — Azzolini’s

10
‘Giunse in Genova l’Azzolini circa l’anno 1510, ove vedutisi alcuni suoi lavorietti in
cera dal Sig. Marc’Antonio Doria, tanto piacquero a questo Cavaliere; che alcuni gliene com-
mise; i quali con indicibile accuratezza, e finezza furono dal Napoletano Artefice eseguiti:
onde ne salì in maggior credito presso i nostri Cittadini.
Ciò, che egli al Doria compose furono quattro mezze figure rappresentative de’ novis-
simi. Ne’ volti di quelle rispettivamente spiravano gli affetti d’un’Anima beata: d’un’altra
condannata a patire, ma con la speranza dell’eterno contento: della terza finta dentro uno
scheletro: e della quarta esprimente nell’orrendo abisso l’idea d’una rabbiosa disperazione.
Lavori di spiritosa, ed efficace energía’ (Soprani, 1768], I, 417). On Azzolini, see Pyke, 1973,
8, and the important contribution by Gonzáles-Palacios, 1984, I, 226–36. There is consid-
erable confusion with at least one other artist named Giovanni Bernardino (Prota-Giurleo,
1953, 123–51; Mostra, 1977, 109–13; Mongitore, 1977, 80–112; Di Dario Guida, 1978,
149–54).
For a checklist and illustrations of preserved and recorded examples of the Four Last
Things in the wax versions by Azzolini, plus a few related works, see Appendix B, p. 730,
and Figs. 46–65. The traditional association of these works with the better known wax
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 25

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 705

dramatic portrayals were very successful and many versions are known,
none of which can be ascribed to him with certainty. What is clear, both
from the descriptions and from the known copies, is that the reliefs were
based on Mair’s prints, and it is possible that Azzolini, who registered with
the painter’s guild in Rome in 1618, may in turn have inspired Bernini to
make his own sculptural versions.11
Azzolini was known for another work that may have been relevant to
Bernini’s sculptures. This was a pair of colored waxs, now lost, described as
heads of infants, one crying the other laughing.12 Here, human emotions
were brought to expressive peaks and directly contrasted. The pertinence of
these sculptures is enhanced by an almost inevitable association with the old
tradition of representing the human soul in the form of an infant. Many
versions of the pair are known (Fig. 34), including the marble busts in the
ideal collection shown in a ‘gallery’ picture of the seventeenth century by
the Flemish master Willem van Haecht the Younger (Fig. 35).13
This version, in turn, brings into focus another aspect of the prehistory
of Bernini’s soul portraits: his adoption of the bust form. The ancient
Romans developed the sculptured bust as the portrait form par excellence.14
The full-length statue might portray an allegory, a god, or a human being,
whereas the bust was reserved almost exclusively for people — or rather, the
spirits of people, for it originated and remained intimately associated with
the ancestor cult (Fig. 36). The bust was thus antiquity’s most conspicuous
form of personal commemoration and its role in the imperial cult made it
for early Christians the very symbol of idolatry. Certain Early Christian

sculptor Gaetano Giulio Zumbo (1656–1701), who also came from southern Italy and
worked for a time in Naples, is unfounded. Fagiolo dell’Arco and Fagiolo dell’Arco, 1967,
Scheda no. 12, noted the dependence of the Victoria and Albert waxes, attributed to the cir-
cle of Zumbo, on Bernini’s sculptures.
11
Azzolini’s presence in Rome was noted by Orlandi (1788, col. 617).
12
‘E questo suo medesimo talento nella forza dell’espressione diede pur egli a conoscere
allo stesso Signore in due altre modellate, e colorite teste di putti, ridente l’una, e piangente
l’altra: ove l’affetto, che in esse appariva, vivamente eccitavasi ne’riguardanti’ (Soprani, 1768,
I, 417).
13
The theme of the Laughing and Crying Babies is discussed briefly, with great acumen
but without reference to Azzolini, by Schlegel (1978, 129–31), who attributes the origin of
the type to Duquesnoy. For a recent discussion of the painting by Van Haecht, see Filipczak,
1987, 47 ff. Closely related are the crying babies attributed to Hendrik de Keyser (cf. Avery,
1981, 183 Figs. 18, 19, 184 ff ).
14
For what follows concerning the history and significance of the bust type, see Lavin,
1970 and 1975.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 26

706

32. Tomb portrait of Ippolito Buzio. Santa Maria sopra Minerva,

Rome (photo: Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione,
Rome E54398).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 27

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 707

33. Frans Floris, Last Judgment. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

34. Crying and laughing babies, wax. Formerly Lanna collection,

Prague (from Sammlung, 1911, pl. 20).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 28

708

35. Willem van Haecht the Younger, Studio of Cornelis van der Geest, detail.
Rubenshuis, Antwerp.

37, Nebuchadnezzar and the Three Youths, sarcophagus of St. Ambrose,

detail. Sant’Ambrogio, Milan (photo: Electa).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 29

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 709

36 . Roman patrician with ancestor portraits. Palazzo Barberini,

Rome (photo: Anderson 6371).
 710
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV
15/11/08
17:04

38. Jan Davidsz de

Page 30

Heem,
Vanitas still life.
Schloss
Pommersfelden
(photo: Marburg
63877).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 31

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 711

40. Laughing Faun. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

39. Laocoön, detail. Vatican Museum, Rome.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 32

712
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 33

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 713

41, 42. Last act of Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo

(from De’ Cavalieri, 1600).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 34

714

depictions of the story of the three youths who refuse to worship the image
of Nebuchadnezzar show not a statue but a bust on a pedestal standing on
the ground (Fig. 37). The bust signified far more than met the eye, and this
quasi-demonic potency led to its virtually complete suppression in the
Middle Ages. When it was revived in the Renaissance, some of its super-
charged meaning was transmitted to the modern cult of the individual, so
that the renewed form acquired an emblematic significance of its own. In
the seventeenth century, by a characteristic process that might be called par-
adoxical inversion, sculptured busts were often given prominent roles in the
flourishing genre of moralized still life, or vanitas, painting.15 These pictured
busts were never actual portraits but represented ideal types, such as were
kept in artists’ studios as models of classical beauty and expression. In this
context they might have dual significance, alluding not only to the transi-
toriness of life but also to the futility of the arts themselves, even that of
carving stone. A memento mori composition by Jan Davidsz de Heem (Fig.
38) evidently alludes to the three ages of man, with a skull in the center
flanked by sculptured heads of a serene child and a suffering man, perhaps
that of the son of Laocoön in the ancient exemplum doloris group in the
Vatican (Fig. 39).16 By adopting the bust form for his soul portraits, Bernini
transformed a visual device that evoked generically the life of this world into
one that evoked individual life in the next.
Bernini’s busts form a complementary and contrasting pair in composi-
tion, sex, and expression. The action of the heads and direction of the
glances create a spatial environment that includes the spectator and extends
upward to heaven and downward to hell. The portrayal of the souls fol-
lowed a tendency evident in some depictions of the Last Judgment to focus
on a representative male to convey the rabid fury of the damned and on a
female to convey the ecstasy of the saved (see Fig. 30).17 In the Anima Beata
Bernini omitted the deacon’s surplice Mair had provided (see Fig. 31) and
gave greater prominence to the wreath of flowers, an attribute of purity

15
Works of this kind, including that by De Heem reproduced here, are discussed in
Veca, 1981, 85–91; Stilleben, 1979, 106–9, 455–7; Heezen-Stoll, 1979, 218–21; Merrill,
1960, 7 ff.
16
See Ladendorf, 1953, 37–45; Ettlinger, 1961. On the painting, see recently Leselust,
1993, 210–11.
17
Frans Floris repeated the elements of the Vienna composition reproduced in Figure 33
(dated 1566) in a triptych in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (cf. Van de Velde, 1975,
314–18, nos. 178–80).
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BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 715

often worn by angels. The effect is to replace the liturgical and ritual
emphasis of Mair’s interpretation with an embodiment of moral innocence.
Looking up and slightly to the side, with nostrils distended and lips parted
in a gentle sigh, the blessed soul responds to the beatific vision that all the
blessed in heaven enjoy. The expression of blissful suffering recalls, in posi-
tive terms, the physical torment and anguished groan of Laocoön’s son.
The blunt features and unruly hair of the damned soul are derived from
the common identification of devils with satyrs, the ancient embodiments
of unrestrained passion. In certain instances the satyr-devil’s ghoulish grin
is quite deliberately matched by the howling grimace of the damned
(see Fig. 33). Specifically, the Anima Dannata seems to convert into nega-
tive terms the features of an ancient dancing satyr, a type for which Bernini
later expressed great admiration, and which was also given bust form in this
period (Fig. 40).18 In both of Bernini’s busts, therefore, the expressive qual-
ities seem to have resulted in part from subtle and ironic inversions of
ancient expressive conventions.
Taken together, the sculptures convey a sense of the Last Things very dif-
ferent from that of earlier portrayals of the theme; Bernini emphasized not
the physical but the psychological consequences of good and evil. In this
respect the Anima Beata and Anima Dannata seem to embody medieval the-
ological definitions of the summum bonum and the summum malum as the
judged soul aware of its destiny either to behold or to be banished from the
face of God, forever.19 These are the prospects Bernini’s images contemplate
and they react to what they ‘see.’
Finally, there can be little doubt that Bernini’s soul portraits reflect a
Roman theatrical event of the Jubilee year 1600, in which personifications
of damned and blessed souls appeared together outside their usual narrative
context. This was the Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo, a musical drama
sponsored by the Fathers of the Oratory, founded in the late sixteenth cen-
tury in Rome by St. Philip Neri, and performed in the order’s oratory at

18
For the type, see Haskell and Penny, 1981, 205–8; Bober and Rubinstein, 1986, 97.
Bernini’s enthusiasm is recorded for a version of the type he saw during his visit to Paris in
1665: ‘Il a dit, voyant de Faune qui danse, qu’il voyait cette statue mal volontiers, lui faisant
connaître qu’en comparaison il ne savait rien’ (Chantelou, 1885, 116; entry for August 23).
The bronze in Amsterdam reproduced in Figure 40 is ascribed to Rome, seventeenth cen-
tury (Leeuwenberg, 1973, 404).
19
For a survey of the medieval history of this idea, and further bibliography, see
Bernstein, 1982.
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716

Santa Maria in Vallicella.20 The music was written by Emilio de’ Cavalieri
(1550?–1602), a leading figure in the development of the early opera, and
the text by Agostino Manni (1548–1618), an Oratorian who had previ-
ously published several volumes of spiritual poems called laude. The
Rappresentatione was important from many points of view. It marked the
introduction from Florence to Rome of the new technique of melodic
recitation, or the use of song in a dramatic enactment — melodrama, as it
was called — intended to recapture what was thought to be the essential
principle of ancient theatrical art. All this was stated explicitly in the pref-
ace to the original edition of the text and score of the Rappresentatione, as
was the intention to move the audience by expressing through the melodic
dialogue the strongly contrasting emotions of the characters, ‘like pity and
joy, weeping and laughter.’ ‘Passing from one affection to its contrary, as
from mournful to happy, from ferocious to gentle and the like, is greatly
moving.’21
The text of the play, which must certainly have been conceived with
musical enactment in mind, was no less innovative, in part because of pre-
cisely the return to much earlier traditions that would animate Bernini’s
sculptures. Essentially, the text combined two late-medieval modes, both
revived in the latter part of the sixteenth century: the lauda, or song of
praise, with a narrative and dialogue between voices or characters, real or
imaginary, but no proper enactment; and the sacra rappresentazione, or reli-
gious play in verse, usually based on a biblical story, with parts often sung
to musical accompaniment.22 The three-act work, something between a

20
See Smither, 1977–87, I, 80–89. A facsimile of the original edition, De’ Cavalieri,
1600, was published in 1967. A useful commentary and English translation of the text can
be found in T. C. Read, 1969. On the architectural history of the oratory, see Connors, 1980.
21
‘. . . singolari, e nuoue sue compositioni di Musica, fatte à somiglianza di quello stile,
co’l quale si dice, che gli antichi Greci, e Romani nelle scene, e teatri loro soleano à diuersi
affetti muouere gli spettatori,’ ‘suonato, e cãtato all’antica, come s’è detto,’ ‘musica affettu-
osa,’ ‘habbia potuto . . . rauuiuare quell’antica usanza così felicemente,’ ‘questo stile sia atto
à muouer’anco à deuotione,’ ‘questa sorte di Musica da lui rinouata commoua à diuersi
affetti, come à pietà, & à pianto, & à riso, & ad altri fimili,’ ‘esprima bene le parole, che
siano intese, & le accompagni con gesti, & motiui non solamente di mani, ma di passi
ancora, che sono aiuti molto efficaci à muouere l’affetto,’ ‘laudarebbe mutare i[s]tromenti
conforme all’affetto del recitante,’ ‘il passar da vno affetto all’altro cõtrario, come dal mesto
all’allegro, dal feroce al mire, e simili, commuoue grandemente.’
22
My analysis is based essentially on Smither, 1977–87, I, 6 f, 22–28, 57–89;
Kirkendale, 1971; J. W. Hill, 1979; and an as yet unpublished essay kindly placed at my dis-
posal by Prizer, 1987.
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BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 717

recitation and a play, included, besides Body and Soul, allegorical characters
such as Time, Understanding, Good Counsel, Mammon, and Wordly Life.
The plot consists entirely in the exchange of arguments for good and evil,
presented in counterpoint until Virtue triumphs. The only events, properly
speaking, occur in the third act when hell and heaven alternately open and
close, their denizens intoning laments and exaltations (cf. Figs. 41, 42).
So far as we know, the Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo was not per-
formed again after the Jubilee of 1600, but its impact was immediate and
profound. A contemporary biographer of Manni described the perform-
ances attended by the whole College of Cardinals, as ‘the first in Rome in
the new recitative style, which then became frequent and universally
applauded.’23 The response may be judged from the vivid, moving recollec-
tions of an eyewitness, recorded after the death of Emilio de’ Cavalieri in
1602. The report illustrates not only the thematic but also the expressive
context from which Bernini’s sculptures emerged.

I, Giovanni Vittorio Rossi, found myself one day in the home of

Signor Cavaliere Giulio Cesare Bottifango, not only a fine gentleman
but also one of rare qualities — excellent secretary, most knowledge-
able poet and musician. Having begun to discuss music that moves
the emotions [musica che move gli affetti], he told me resolutely that
he had never heard anything more affecting [più affettuosa], or that
had moved him more than the Representation of the Soul put to
music by the late Mr. Emilio del Cavaliere, and performed the Holy
Year 1600 in the oratory of the Assumption, in the house of the
Reverend Fathers of the Oratorio at the Chiesa Nova. He was pres-
ent that day when it was performed three times without satisfying
the demand, and he said in particular that hearing the part of Time,
he felt come over him a great fear and terror; and at the part when
the Body, performed by the same person as Time, in doubt whether
to follow God or the World, resolved to follow God, his eyes poured
forth a great abundance of tears and he felt arise in his heart a great
repentance and pain for his sins. Nor did this happen only then, but

23
‘. . . fu rappresentato in scena cogl’habiti nell’Oratorio nostro da due volte, con l’in-
tervento di tutto il sacro collegio di Card.li, e ve ne furono da quindici e venti per ciascuna
volta...Fu questa rappresentatione la prima che fosse fatta in Roma in stile recitativo, e di indi
in poi cominciò con universale applauso a frequentarsi negli oratorii il detto stile’ (Alaleona,
1905, 17, 18).
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718

thereafter whenever he sang it he was so excited to devotion that he

wanted to take communion, and he erupted in a river of tears. He
also gave extreme praise to the part of the Soul, divinely performed
by that castrato; he said the music was also an inestimable artifice
that expressed the emotions of pain and tenderness with certain false
sixths tending toward sevenths, which ravished the spirit. In sum, he
concluded, one could not do anything more beautiful or more per-
fect in that genre, and, so I might see for myself the truth of what he
said, he took me to the harpsicord and sang several pieces from the
representation, in particular that part of the Body which had so
moved him. It pleased me so much that I asked him to share it with
me, and he most courteously copied it himself. I learned it by heart,
and often went to his house to hear him sing it himself.24

24
‘Ritrovandomi io Go: Vittorio Rossi un giorno in casa del Signor Cavaliere Giulio
Cesare Bottifango, gentil’uomo oltre la bontà, di rare qualità secretario eccellente, poeta e
musico intendentissio, et entrati in ragionamento della musica che move gli affetti, mi disse
risolutamente che non haveva sentita cosa più affettuosa, ne che più lo movessi della
rappresentatione dell’anima messa in musica dalla buona memoria del Signor Emilio del
Cavaliere, e rappresentata l’anno Santo 1600 nell’oratorio dell’Assunta, nella casa delli molto
Reverendi Padri dell’Oratorio alla Chiesa Nova, e che egli vi si trovò presente in quel giorno,
che si rappresentò tre volte senza potersi mai satiare e mi disse in particolare che sentendo la
parte del tempo, si sentì entrare adosso un timore e spavento grande, et alla parte del corpo,
rappresentata dal medesimo che faceva il tempo, quando stato alquanto in dubbio, che cosa
doveva fare, o seguire Iddio o’l Mondo, si risolveva di seguire Iddio che gli uscirno da gl’oc-
chi in grandissima abbondanza le lacrime e sentì destarsi nel core un pentimento grande e
dolore dei suoi peccati, né questo fu per allora solamente, ma di poi sempre che la cantava,
talché ogni volta che si voleva comunicare, per eccitare in sé la divotione, quella parte, e pro-
rompeva in un fiume di pianto. Lodava ancora in estremo la parte del’anima, che oltre esser
stata rappresentata divinamente da quel putto, diceva nella musica essere un artifitio ines-
timabile che esprimeva gli affetti di dolore e di dolcezza con certe seste false, che tiravano alla
settima, che rapivano l’anima; insomma, concludeva, in quel genere non potersi fare cosa più
perfetta, e soggiunse, acciò vediate soi stesso esser vero quanto vi dico mi condusse al cem-
balo, e cantò alcuni pezzi di quella rappresentatione et in particolare quel loco del Corpo,
che lo moveva tanto, e mi piacque in maniera ch’io lo pregai a farmene parte, il che molto
cortesemente fece, e me lo copiò di sua mano, et io lo imparai alla mente, et andavo spesso
a saca sua per sentrilo cantare da lui’ (Morelli, 1985, 196). Rossi is well known as Ianus
Nicius Erythraeus, the author of the three-volume series of biographies of contemporaries,
Pinacotheca (Cologne, 1643, 1645, 1648), which included accounts of Agostino Manni and
Bottifango (for the latter, see also Dizionario, 1960—, XXIII, 456 f ).
Cavalieri himself described the audience’s response in a letter written to Florence soon
after: ‘I forgot to say what the priests of the Vallicella told me, and this is great. Many prelates
among those who came to Florence saw a rappresentatione in musica that I had done this
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BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 719

The legacy of Manni’s and Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione was twofold. Its

drama and spectacle were absorbed in the operas on religious themes pro-
duced in Rome in the second quarter of the century; the work also influ-
enced the development by Neri’s order of the oratorio form itself, in which
recitative predominated over staging. Common to both forms was the
melodic dialogue, and its use in the Rappresentatione may have been directly
inspired by a medieval work. The interchange between Anima and Corpo
that provided the main theme as well as the title of the Rappresentatione
seems to recall explicitly one of the laude, a contrasto between Body and
Soul by the fourteenth-century Franciscan poet Jacopone da Todi, whose
writings were incorporated into the daily devotions of the Oratorians by
Philip Neri himself.25 The contrasto was a distinct literary genre in which
two characters, who may personify abstract ideas, debate a moral issue.
Related both to scholastic dialectic and the Psychomachia, or Battle of the
Virtues and Vices,26 the struggle could take forms that strikingly anticipate
Bernini’s contrast of moral, physical, and emotional types. In a capital of the
cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand (Fig. 43), for example, a noble female
Liberality (Largitas) confronts a disheveled male Avarice (Avaricia). In an
illumination of the prayer book of the great twelfth-century mystic
Hildegard of Bingen a similar pairing of opposites illustrates the concord
and discord of ‘Beati’ and ‘Maledicti’ (Fig. 44). Hildegard’s vision is a rare
precedent for the isolation of good and bad spirits in the last act of
Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo, where, apparently for the first time,

carnival at their Oratorio, for which the expenditure was six scudi at the most. They say that
they found it much more to their taste, because the music moved them to tears and laugh-
ter and pleased them greatly, unlike this music of Florence, which did not move them at all,
unless to boredom and irritation’ (‘Mi era scordato dire; che questa e grande; che da quei
preti della Vallicella mi hanno detto; che molti prelati; di quelli uenuti a Fio.za ueddero una
costesta che io feci fare questo Carneuale, di rappresentatione in musica; al loro oratorio; che
si spese da D sei al piu; et dicono; che ne receuerno altro gusto; poiche la musica il mosse a
pianto et riso; et le diede gran gusto/et che questa musica di Firenze; non li mosse se non a
tedio et fastidio’); published in English by Palisca, 1963, 352, to whom I am indebted for
supplying the Italian text.
25
The relationship to the medieval contrasto and Jacopone da Todi was first suggested by
Becherini (1943, 3 n. 3, and 1951, 233 f ), followed by Kirkendale (1971, 17), who referred
specifically to Jacopone’s ‘Anima e Corpo’ contrasto (Jacopone da Todi, 1953, 9–11), and
Smither (1977–87, I, 57), who also noted Neri’s interest in and use of Jacopone.
On the medieval contrasto between Body and Soul, see Walther, 1920, 63 ff; Wilmart,
1939; Toschi, 1955, 149–65; Osmond, 1974; Enciclopedia, 1975, III, cols. 1357–60.
26
For what follows, see Katzenellenbogen, 1964, 1 ff, 8 n. 1, 58 f; Houlet, 1969.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 40

720

43. Largitas and Avaricia.

Nôtre-Dame-du-Port,
Clermont-Ferrand
(photo: Monuments
historiques J.F. 639/73).

45. Anima ragionevole

e beata
(from Ripa, 1603, 22).
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BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 721

44. Hildegard of Bingen, “Beati” and “Maledicti.” MS lat. 935.

fol. 38v, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 42

722

damned and blessed souls acting in chorus become characters in a dramatic

confrontation. In this respect, as well, the Rappresentatione prepared the way
for Bernini’s sculptures.
So far as I can discover, Anima Dannata and Anima Beata were also first
treated as isolated images precisely in this context. Cesare Ripa included
them in the third edition (1603) of his pictorial handbook of personified
concepts, the Iconologia. He explains that when the soul of a person is intro-
duced onstage in dramatic presentations, it should be given human form.
No doubt Ripa, who lived and worked in Rome under the patronage of
Cardinal Antonio Salviati and his family, was referring to and motivated by
the Oratorian production; his description of the images, one of which he
illustrates (Fig. 45), may well reflect the costumes used in 1600. The figures
are identified by various attributes — Beata is a gracious maiden, Dannata
is disheveled — and by ‘accidents’ indicating their ‘condition’: wounded, in
glory, tormented.27
Bernini, too, isolated the participants from their contexts, creating a
powerful duet of independent and contrasting, yet also complementary,
actors performing on the infinite stage of human existence. Souls in the
form of portrait busts, the sculptures seem to restore to the masks of
Tragedy and Comedy the deeper meaning of the term persona by which
they were known in antiquity. In the Anima Dannata and Anima Beata,
innermost human nature emerges at last from collective anonymity to
assume, for better or for worse, a personality of its own.
Agostino Manni’s subsequent publications bring our themes down to
Bernini’s sculptures and even suggest a reciprocal relationship between
them. In 1609 and 1613 Manni published Spiritual Exercises, ‘an easy way
to fruitful prayer to God and to think upon the things principally relevant

27
‘ANIMA RAGIONEVOLE E BEATA...Si dipinge donzella gratiosissima, per esser
fatta dal Creatore, che è fonte d’ogni bellezza, & perfettione, à sua similitudine . . . Anima
dannata. Occorrendo spesse volte nelle tragedie, & rappresentationi di casi seguiti, & finti,
si spirituali come profani, introdurre nel palco l’anima di alcuna persona, fa mestiero hauer
luce, come ella si debba visibilmente introdurre. Per tanto si dourà rappresentare in forma,
& figura humana, ritenendo l’effigie del suo corpo. Sarà nuda, o da sottilissimo & traspar-
ente velo coperta, come anco scapigliata, & il colore della carnagione di lionato scuro, & il
velo di color negro...Dicesi anco meglio conoscerla, se gli habbia à rappresentarla con diuersi
accidenti, come per esempio, ferita, ò in gloria, ò tormentata, &c. & in tal caso si quali-
ficherà in quella maniera, che si conuiene allo stato, & conditione sua’ (Ripa, 1603, 22 f ).
Ripa’s image in turn inspired Guido Reni’s late visionary portrayals of Anima Beata, in
the Capitoline Museum, Rome (The Age of Correggio, 1986, 522; Bruno, 1978, 61 f ).
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BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 723

to salvation, to acquire the true pain of sins, and to make a good death.’
Following a series of daily devotions, the things principally relevant to sal-
vation are treated in exercises — which often include what Manni calls
‘imaginations’ — on heaven and hell, the Four Last Things, and a good life
and death.28 Manni’s exercises thus actually combine the two great late
medieval eschatologies, The Four Last Things and the The Art of Dying, with
which we began. The last edition, greatly abbreviated, appeared posthu-
mously in 1620, shortly after Bernini’s sculptures were presumably made.29
There followed in 1625 a new publication excerpted from Manni’s works,
this time in just two parts. The first consists only of the meditations on the
joys of heaven and the torments of hell; the second is none other than a
reprint of the text of the Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo.30 In effect,
the Four Last Things have been reduced to two, and the dramatic debate
between virtue and vice has become the model of preparation for a good
death. Significantly, however, the drama itself is given a new name. It is no
longer conceived in terms of body and soul, but rather — and I quote the
new title — as a ‘representation in which by diverse images the individual
is shown the calamitous end of the sinner and the honored and glorious end
of the just man.’ I can think of no better description of Bernini’s sculptures.
In fact, when one recalls that they had only recently been made for a mem-
ber of the Spanish church not far from that of the Oratorians, one cannot
help wondering whether they might in turn have played a role in the distil-
lation, intensification, and visualization of the very dramatic work from
which they themselves seem to have derived.

28
Manni, 1609 and 1613. The full titles are given in the bibliography. The headings of
the pertinent sections in the 1613 edition are as follows: pp. 60 ff, Essercitio circa l’eternità
della felicità del cielo; 79 ff, Essercitio circa la consideratione delle pene dell’Inferno; 104,
Essercitio per haver’in pronto le quattro memorie, della Morte, del Guidicio, dell’Inferno, e
del Paradiso; 105 ff, Memoria della Morte; 122 ff, Memoria secondo, del Giudicio; 132 ff,
Memoria Terza, dell’Inferno; 142 ff, Quarta Memoria, del Paradiso; 177 ff, Essercitio per
vivere, e morire felicemente.
29
Manni, 1620.
30
Manni, 1625; this edition, which I have not seen, is recorded in Villarosa, 1837, 162.
I give the full title from the edition published in 1637 (see Bibliography).
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724

Appendix A

New Documents Concerning the Anime Busts

and the Tomb of Pedro de Foix Montoya

The sculptures, mentioned by Bernini’s biographers Filippo Baldinucci

and Domenico Bernini as in San Giacomo degli Spagnoli, were moved in
the late nineteenth century to the Palazzo di Spagna, residence of the
Spanish ambassador to the Vatican (replacement copies were made which
are now in Santa Maria di Monserrato). Having discovered that they came
to the church with the legacy of Botinete, I once questioned the traditional
association of these busts with Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya, for
whose tomb, also originally in San Giacomo and now in Santa Maria in
Monserrato, Bernini executed the famous portrait toward the end of 1622
(Lavin, ‘Five Youthful Sculptures,’ 1968, 240 n. 114). I subsequently found
in the archive of the confraternity additonal documents concerning
Montoya and his tomb; these established that Montoya was indeed the
patron of the Anime, which were in his possession by December 1619, and
suggest that he may have intended them to decorate his tomb.
An inventory of Montoya’s household possessions taken in December
1619 includes ‘dos estatuas’ (see Document 1 below), the only such objects
listed; these must have been the Anime, which appear again in the inventory
taken after Montoya’s death (below, and Document 2). On March 8, 1623,
Montoya signed an agreement with the stone-cutter Santi Ghetti for his
tomb (Document 8), to be made according to a design provided by the
architect Orazio Turriani, who received payment on March 11 (Document
9). The monument was to include ‘two angels’ that are specifically excluded
from Ghetti’s responsibility, indicating that they, like the portrait, were to
be (or already had been) executed by someone else. Perhaps Fernandez
Alonso (1968, 106) was alluding to this document in suggesting that the
busts formed part of the tomb. The tomb was not finished at Montoya’s
death on May 31, 1630, and the executors paid for the remaining work over
the next few months (Documents 3–7).
The Anime are listed in an inventory of Montoya’s possessions, undated
but taken shortly after his death (Document 2), after which they evidently
became the property of Ferdinando Botinete, one of Montoya’s confreres;
they next appear in a 1637 inventory of San Giacomo, as a legacy of
Botinete (Document 10).
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BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 725

All the documents listed below are in the Archive of the Instituto Español de
Estudios Eclesiasticos, Rome.

Busta 1746, Papeles de la memoria de Mons. Montoya:

Fols. 20 ff: Memoria de toda la Ropa que hasta oy Jueves de dicembre de 1619
Años Quai en caza de Mons.or De Foix Montoya, Misenor Para el servisio de su casa
y persona.
1. fol. 27: dos estatuas

Fols. 29 ff: Inventory of Montoya’s household possessions ordered by the

executors of his will.
2. fol. 31r: Item dos medios cuerpos de piedra de statuas

Fols. 35 ff: Nota de como se una cumpliendo los legados y ultima voluntad de
Monseñor Pedro de Foix Montoia por sus executores testamentarios desde el dia de
su muerte, que fué alos 31 de Maio de 1630.
3. fol. 42b: Io Giovanne Mariscalco ho receuto dalli ss.ri Essecutori testamentarij
di monsre Montoia in 2 partite scta quarentacinco sonno per il deposito et lapida et
à bon conto. Et in fede qto di 16 Xbre 1630 scta 45
[in margin: scarpellino).
4. fol. 43b: Io francesco Pozi muratore ho riceuto dalli ss.ri Essecutori testam.ri del
q. Monre Montoia scudi sedici m.ta sonno per saldo et intiero pagamto di tutti li
lauori di muratore fatti da me nel deposito di d.o Monsre conforme alla lista tassata
dal sig.to della Chiesa.
Et in fede etc. sc 16 q.o di 6 di Genaro 1631.
Io fran.co Pozo a fermo come sopra mano propria.
5. fol. 43b: Io infrascritto ho riceuto dalli Ill.ri sig.ri essecutori testamentarii del
q. Monsig.re Montoya scudi tre mta -p hauere indorato le Arme e le lettere del suo
sepolcro e in fede ho fatto la pte di mia ppa mano questo di 23 Aprile 1631 et dico
______sc 3
Io Giovanni Contini Mano -p-p a
6. fol. 44: Adi 23 Marzo 1632
Io Santi Ghetti ho riccuuto dalli ss.ri Essecutori testamentarii del q. Mons.re
Montoya scudi Trenta m.ta & sonno li scudi venticinq. per la lapida che ho fatto per
la sepoltura di esso Monsig.re et li scudi Cinque per saldo, et intiero pagamento del
deposito.
Et in fede di q.o di
sc.ta 30
Io santi Ghetti afermo come sopra sua mano pp.a

Fols. 46 ff Memoria de lo que se ha sacado de Mons.re foix de Montoya con-

forme al Inuentario, y al moneda que se hizo
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 46

726

7. fol. 48: al pintor por las armas que hizo _____sc. 5.60
al murador por abrir la sepoltura y cerrarla _____sc. 4

fol. 48 verso: al scarpelino abuena quenta de la sepoltura _____sc. 45

de dorar las armas de la sepoltura _____sc. 3
al murador por los labores hechos en poner el deposito de Monseñor _____
sc. 16
al scarpelino por intero pagamento de la lapida y sepoltura _____sc. 30.
al murador por abrir y poner la lapide _____sc. 3.

Fols. 55–56b. Contract with Santi Ghetti for Montoya’s tomb:

8. Douendosi dal Molto Ill.mo et R.mo Monsig.re de Foix Montoija far fare un
deposito nella Chiesa di s. Giacomo delli spagnioli vecino alla porta che va in
sagrestia à mano manca nel entrare, sotto al organo, qual deposito n’é stato fatto il
disegnio da Horatio Torriani Architetto in Roma per altezza di pi 17 et nel modo,
e forma che si uede detto disegnio, si douera eseguire conforme alli patti capitoli,
conuentioni infrascritti. Pertanto il detto Monsig.re da a fare il sudetto deposito à
tutta robba di m.o santi Ghetti scarpellino rencontro la pista piccola di santa
Adriano alli pattani, et campo vaccino a tutte sue spese nel modo, e forma che si
dechiara in questo foglio. _____

Item che detto scarpellino sia obligato di fare il frontespitio sopra l’arme di
marmo bianco di Carrara.

Il timpano sotto il frontespitio di bianco e nero antico orientale _____

La cornicia sopra l’arme di marmo bianco di Carrara, atorno al arme il simile

_____

L’arme con il cappello, et fiocchi sia tutto di un pezzo di marmo bianco di

Carrara, et il repiano del arme di bianco e nero antiquo orientale, et le cartelle
accanto l’arme di marmo bianco, et incastrato di marmo, e bianco e nero antiquo
orientale _____

Il frontespitio sopra alle colonne di marmo bianco di Carrara, con il timpano

di bianco e nero antiquo orientale _____

La cornice sotto l’arme, et che ricorre sopra alle colonne, et membretti si fara di
marmo bianco di Carrara _____

Il campo sotto la cornice, et intorno al retratto, et cassa si fara di bianco e nero

antiquo orientale _____
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 47

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 727

Cartelle dalle bande del ouato che fa modello si farano di marmo bianco
d’Carrara con campanella di marmo simile _____

L’ouato cioe la fascia si fara di brocatello de Spagnia _____

Lo sfondato del retratto dentro la nicchia si fara -p dentro piano, et di nero

assoluto _____

Il fregio sopra alle colonne si fara di bianco e nero

antiquo orientale _____

La prima iscritione si faccia di paragone senza macchia tutto negro _____

Il tellaro atorno addetta iscritione sia di gialdo orientale _____

fol. 55b
Le caretelle sotto la prima iscrittione siano di marmo bianco di Carrara et repi-
eni di bianco e nero antiquo orientale _____

La cassa sia di gialdo, et nero di portovenere del più bello che uenghi conforme
à quella della cappella del Cardinal Gaetano in santa Potentiana, et sia della medes-
ima fattura ne piu nemeno _____

Il zoccholo sotto alla cassa sia di alabastro rigato antiquo, et il simile sotto alle
base delle colonne, et membretto _____

Le colonne si farano di nero, et gialdo de portovenere come di sop.a conforme

alla cassa de S.a Potentiana, et della medesima bonta di pietra _____

Li contrapilastri delle colonne si farano di marmo bianco di Carrara _____

Li membretti delle colonne cioe dalle bande di brocatello di

Spagnia _____

Le base, et capitelli come si uedono in disegnio siano de marmo bianco di

Carrara _____

La cimasa la colonna di marmo bianco di Carrara _____

La seconda iscritione che fa piedestallo sia di marmo bianco di

Carrara _____
con suo membretti _____
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 48

728

Sopra della 2.a iscrittione si fara un poco di fregio di bianco e nero antiquo ori-
entale dove e il collarino del pedestallo di tutta lunghezza _____

Il basamento che andera sotto a d.o iscritione, et alli pedestalli delle colonne et
membretti si faranno di marmo bianco di Carrara _____

L’ultimo zoccholo sotto il fine del opera al piano di terra si fara di africano bello,
et antiquo _____

Ite. che tutta la detta opera sia fatto nel modo e forma detto di sopra con le
pietre dechiarate in questo foglio, et non altrimenti, quale tutte doverano essere
poste in opera, con ogni diligenza, et ataccate con mistura, et stuccate a foco et
doveranno alustrare il tutto ad ogni bellezza, et paragone tutto a spese del detto m.ro
santi scarpellino _____

Ite. che detto m.o santi sia obligato di dar fornito tutta l’opera di detto depos-
ito a tutta perfettione intermine di quattro mesi prossimi da cominciarsi da hoggi
_____

fol. 56
Ite. che il detto mons.re sia obligato a tutta sue spese di far mettere in opera il
detto deposito -p quello che spettera al muratore con patto che vi debbia intervenire,
et assistere continuamente il d.o m. santi mentre si mettera in opera, et con interu-
ento alle cose principali del Architetto _____

Ite. che detto m.o santi debbia fare a sue spese una croce di gialdo al detto depos-
ito atutte sue spese ancorche non vi sia nel disegnio, et gli Angeli che sono in d.o
disegnio non si comprendino nel patto, et conventione che si obliga d.o scarpellino
_____

Ite. che detto scarpellino sia obligato di fare intagliare à tutte sue spese tutte le
lettere che si daranno da s. R.ma tanto nella prima iscritione di paragone negro come
in quella seconda di marmo bianco di Carrara _____

Che l’horo che andera sopra alle lettere della pietro di paragone si debbia met-
tere a spese di ss. R.ma et doue anderanno di tenta negre sul bianco a spese del do
scarp.no _____

Ite. che detto scarpellino debbia mostrare primo a s. R.ma et al Architetto tutte
le pietro dette di sop.a avanti li lavori -p mettere in opera, et che non debbia lauo-
rare il detto deposito se prima non habbia hauto li modeni in carta di tutta la detta
opera dal Architetto, et a quelli modeni non sminuisca, et no preterisca di cosa
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 49

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 729

alguna, et d.i modeni siano dati -p primo che cominci et cole picture siano uiste
prima _____

Che volendo disegniare il detto deposito lo scarpellino in prima grande debbia

il do Monsig.re fare che l’Architetto debbia intervenire -p do disegnio in quel modo
che piu piacera, et sara comodo allo scarpellino, et questo si faccia senza spese dallo
scarpellino _____

Ite. che il detto deposito s’intenda all’allezza, et larghezza che seconda la scala
delli p.mi che stanno disegniati sotto do deposito et non altrimenti _____

fol. 56b
Ite. che -p tutto quello che si possa pretendere tanto per la fattura come del val-
ore della robba del detto deposito il detto mons.re et santi Ghetti scarpellino si con-
vengono di accordo de farlo p prezzo et valore di sc.di cento sessanta di moneta li
quali s. R.ma promette di pagarli liberamente in questo modo, scudi sessanta al -p te -p
un ordine al banco, et altri sc.di cinquanta nella meta del opera, et li altri scudi
cinquanta fornito che haueua detto deposito subbito _____

Ite. che mancando di fare detto scarpellino alcuna delle cose sud.e che non
fussero a contentimento del s. R.ma possa d.o Monsig.re a tutte spese danni, et inter-
essi di d.o scarpellino farli rifare conforme alli patti, et conventione, et di quello che
importera defalcarlo dal prezzo che douera hauere d.o scarpellino _____

Et -p osservanza delle cose sud.e tanto -p il denaro che douera pagare d.o Mons.re
R. come -p l’opera che deue fare il detto m.o santi Ghetti scarpellino, conforme alli
mo

patti conuentioni d.e di sopra, l’una parte el l’altra si obligano nella piu ampla della
forma della Camera Apostolica, con ogni sorte di clausole, et consuete che si aspet-
tano ado obligo Camerale et -p ciò ad ogni beneplacito del una et l’altra parte da
adesso -p allora danno faculta, a qualseuoglia Notaro di potere stendere d.i capitoli
come Istrumento publico, che -p segnio della uerita hanno sottoscritto la presente
de loro propria mano alla presentia delli infrascritti Testimonij questo di, et anno
sud.o 8 de Marzo 1623 _____
Licen.do po de Foix Montoya
Io santi ghetti afermo quanto di sop - mano pp _____
a

Io Ju yvaniz fui p’sente quanto di sop. .

o a

Io Jacomo Turriani fui presente quanto di sopa mp -.

Io soprado mo santi Ghetti scarpellino mi obligo in forma Camera di fornire fra

tutto ottobre di questo anno 1623 tutti li lauori che sto obligato a fare à Mons.re de
Foix Montoia in questo Instrumento di sop.a et come non lo fornisca fra questo
tempo me contentero che d.o Mons.re de foix Montoija lo possa mandare à fornire
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 50

730

allo scarpellino che verra a tutte spese mie fatta in Roma alli 19 di Agosto 1623

Io santi Ghetti mi obligo et prometto come di sop- mano -p-p

a a

Yo Ju. ybanez fui presente a quanto di s.

o a

Io Jacomo Turriani fui presente quanto di sop.ra

Fol. 57: Receipt of Orazio Turriani

9. Io Horatio Turriani Architetto ho riceuto dal Molto Ill.o et R.mo Mons.re
Montoya scudi sei di moneta quali sono -p ultimo resto et intiero pagamento di
quanto posso pretendere in tutti li disegni et ogni altra cosa che hauessi fatto, et che
douero fare -p tutto l’opera del deposito che andera posto nella chiesa di S. Giacomo
delli Spagnioli in Roma, et mi contento di essere sodisfatto con detti scudi sei -p
qualsivolia cosa che di nouo facessi -p do deposito -p sino che sia del tutto posto in
opera in d a chiesa et cosi prometto et me ne chiamo contento questo 11 di Marzo
1623
Io Horatio Turriani mp - -p
a

Busta 1335, Inventario de los muebles de Santiago hecho en el mes de heno

1637:
10. fol. 169b. Mas dos estatuas de marmol blanco del Bernino con sus
pedestales de jaspe. Son dos testes que representan una el anima in gloria & la otra
anima en peña & las quales vinieron con la que dejò el D.r Botinete ala Egl.a

Appendix B

Checklist of Preserved and Recorded Examples of the Four Last Things in the
Wax Version by Giovanni Bernardino Azzolini:*

1. Convento de las Carmelitas Descalzas, Peñaranda de Bracamante, Spain. Five

wax panels forming a cross, Death in the center, Purgatory on the left, Limbo (a
naked child) on the right, Hell below, Heaven above. Gómez-Moreno, 1967, I,
453; Gonzáles-Palacios (1984, 227) gives evidence for a Neapolitan provenance.
(Fig. 46)

2. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Purgatory and Hell. Pope-Hennessy,

1964, II, 633f. (Purgatory mistakenly identified as Paradise); Lightbown, 1964,

* For information concerning several of the Spanish examples I am indebted to Professor

Vincente Leo Cañal.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 51

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 731

46. Death (center), Purgatory (left), Limbo (right), Hell (bottom), Heaven (top), wax
reliefs. Convento de las Carmelitas Descalzas, Peñaranda de Bracamante, Spain (photo:
Antonio Casaseca, Salamanca).
 732
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV
15/11/08
17:04
Page 52

47, 48. Purgatory, Hell, wax reliefs. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
 Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV
15/11/08
17:04
Page 53

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY

733

49, 50. Purgatory, Hell, wax reliefs. Palazzo Pitti, Florence (photos: Soprintendenza per i Beni Artistici e Storici,
Florence 122743–44).
 734
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV
15/11/08
17:04
Page 54

51, 52. Limbo and Purgatory, wax reliefs. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 55

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 735

53, 54. Hell and Heaven, wax reliefs. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 56

736

55–57. Purgatory, Hell, Heaven, wax reliefs. Formerly Coll. Schevitch,

Paris (from Catalogue, 1906, fig. 313).
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 57

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 737

58. Heaven, wax relief. Formerly Coll. Gonzáles-Palacios, Rome

(photo: Arte fotografica 99962).
 738
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV
15/11/08
17:04
Page 58

59, 60. Death and Judgment, wax reliefs. Schloss Nymphenburg, Munich.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 59

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 739

61, 62. Hell and Heaven, wax reliefs. Schloss Nymphenburg, Munich.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 60

740

63. Attributed to Gaetano Zumbo, Hell, wax relief. Rhode Island

School of Design Museum, Providence.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 61

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 741

64. Attributed to Francisco

Ribalta, Purgatory,
Museo del Prado,
Madrid.

65. Attributed to Francisco

Ribalta, Heaven.
Museo del Prado,
Madrid.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 62

742

495 n. 20; Cagnetta, 1977, 497; idem, 1976, 219, Curiosità, 1979, 41; Gonzáles-
Palacios, 1984, 227. (Figs. 47, 48)

3. Museo degli Argenti, Palazzo Pitti, Florence. Purgatory and Hell. Lightbown,
1964, 495; Aschengreen, 1968, 176; Cagnetta, 1977, 497; idem, 1976, 218;
Malke, 1976, 57; Curiosità, 1979, 41; Gonzáles-Palacios, 1984, 227. (Figs. 49, 50)

4. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome. Limbo, Purgatory, Hell, Heaven.

Ex coll. Mario Praz, prov. Sestieri, Rome, 1961, from Black, London. Attributed to
Azzolini c. 1560 by Praz, who also noted the relation to the Ex coll. Schevitch
group. Cagnetta, 1977; 498; idem, 1976, 219; Curiosità, 1979, 41. (Figs. 51–54)

5. Ex Coll. Schevitch, Paris. Purgatory, Hell, Heaven. Catalogue, 1906, 213f.,

no. 313, ill.; Pyke, 1973, 8; Cagnetta, 1977, 498; idem, 1976, 219; Malke, 1976,
57 n. 18; Gonzáles-Palacios, 1984, 227. (Figs. 55–57)

6. Ex Coll. Gonzáles-Palacios, Rome. Heaven. Attributed to Azzolino.

Cagnetta, 1977, 498; idem, 1976, 219; Gonzáles-Palacios, 1984, 227; Finarte,
1986, 81. (Fig. 58)

7. Schloss Nymphenburg, Munich. Death, Judgment, Hell, Heaven. Gonzáles-

Palacios, 1984, 236 n. 97; Metken, ed., 1984, 26–28, no. 14. (Figs. 59–62)

8. Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence. Hell. Attributed to

Zumbo. Rhode Island, 1985, 30 f. (Fig. 63)

9. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Paintings of Purgatory and Heaven. Attributed to

Francisco Ribalta (d. 1628), Gómez-Moreno, 1967, I: 453; Ribalta, 1987, 144.
(Figs. 64, 65)

10. Coll. Duke of Alcalá, Seville. Five wax images framed in ebony, showing the
four souls and one dying, by Giovanni Bernardino [Azzolini]. Recorded in an early
inventory. Brown and Kagan, 1987, 254, no. 131.

11. Coll. Alcázar, Madrid. Three wax heads, Purgatory, Hell, Heaven, with
frames of ebony and glass. Recorded in an early inventory. Bottineau, 1956, 450,
no. 47.
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV 15/11/08 17:04 Page 63

BERNINI’S PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY 743

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