"L'architettrice" and the 17th-century Italian artists

I was gifted this beautiful novel by Melania Mazzucco (Einaudi), built around the real life of a woman, Plautilla Briccio, "architettrice" (n.d.r unusual italian name to indicate a female architect), as she calls herself, of a roman villa, called "il Vascello", which in the nineteenth century was the pivotal site for the desperate defence of the Roman Republic.

In reconstructing the life of the protagonist, the author effectively immerses us in the atmosphere of seventeenth-century Rome, a city swarming with activity, foreign presences, building fervour, religious ceremonies and also a place of devastating epidemics. The working-class neighbourhoods where a poor and resigned humanity lived alternated with the magnificence of the stately residences. It was here that the great artists worked. Throughout the course of the novel we meet them all and see them at work, getting to know some of the private aspects of their lives.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

«È gran fortuna la vostra, o Cavaliere, di vedere papa il cardinal Maffeo Barberini; ma assai maggiore è la nostra, che il Cavalier Bernino viva nel nostro pontificato». (Papa Urbano VIII)

"Yours is a great fortune, O Knight, to see Cardinal Maffeo Barberini as Pope; but ours is much greater, that Cavalier Bernino lives in our pontificate". (Pope Urbano VIII).

Maffeo Barberini, before his election to the papal throne, had known Lorenzo Bernini working for Cardinal Scipione Borghese. We can imagine him in front of the Apollo and Daphne, fascinated by the tragic beauty of the work and the innocent nudity of the nymph, intent on composing the moralising couplet that should justify the presence of such a work in the house of a cardinal.

"Quisquis amans sequitur fugitivae gaudia formae/ fronde manus implet baccas seu carpit amaras"

"Whatever lover pursues the joys of fleeting beauty / fills his hands with leaves or plucks of bitter fruit"

The elite group of friends who frequented the Borghese household were well acquainted with Ovid's text (Metamorphosis, book 1, vv.452-465) and the commissioning of such a complex work must have been a challenge for the artist in his early twenties. He had to depict two young people on the run: a woman, Daphne, who refused to marry, vowing chastity, and the god Apollo who was in love with her and was chasing her, like a dog chasing after a hare. Until the dramatic conclusion: Daphne, sensing Apollo now behind her, begs her father Peneus to save her and is immediately transformed into a tree.

"in frondem crines, in ramos bracchia crescunt, pes modo tam velox pigris radicibus haeret...."

"The hair grows into fronds, the arms into branches.

The foot, just before so fast, is stuck by lazy roots .... "

What magic, what grace, what intelligence was in the hands of that sculptor who made the marble hair vibrate in the air and an authentic cry come out of the mouth of the girl!

Apollo's head has always seemed weaker to me. Clearly inspired by the Apollo Belvedere , it lacks the beauty of the ancient model.

I always wondered why was the head of Apollo chosen as the logo of the Italian Ministry of Culture. It is true, Apollo was the protector of the arts, but in this context he was just a potential rapist! Wasn't there a more appropriate image in the immense heritage of Italian art?

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Gian Lorenzo Bernini, David, Galleria Borghese, Roma

«La bellissima faccia di questa figura, che egli ritrasse dal proprio volto suo, con una gagliarda increspatura di ciglia all'ingiù, una terribile fissazione d'occhi, e col mordersi colla mandibula superiore tutto il labbro di sotto, fa vedere maravigliosamente espresso il giusto sdegno del giovane Israelita, nell'atto di voler con la frombola pigliar la mira alla fronte del Gigante Filisteo; né dissimile risoluzione, spirito, e forza si scorge in tutte le altre parti di quel corpo, al quale, per andar di pari col vero, altro non mancava, che il moto»

"The beautiful face of this figure, which he portrayed from his own face, with a vigorous downward rippling of the eyelashes, a terrible fixation of the eyes, and by biting with the upper jaw the whole of the lower lip, shows marvellously expressed the righteous indignation of the young Israelite, in the act of aiming his sling at the forehead of the Philistine Giant; Nor is dissimilar resolution, spirit, and strength to be seen in all the other parts of that body, which, to be equal to the truth, lacked nothing but movement".

With these words Filippo Baldinucci describes the face of Bernini's David. It is unnecessary to add words to such a precise description. Perhaps it is worth remembering that, according to tradition, it was Cardinal Barberini himself who held the mirror that the artist required to reproduce his features. He was Gian Lorenzo's lively temperament, ready for anger and at the same time a great theatre actor. He was thus able to identify with the young David as he prepared to fight. Concentration, hatred, violence, the desire to kill, everything transpires from that face.

A word about his theatrical activity. We know that every year for carnival Bernini put on a new play, of which he was author, director, set designer, costume designer and actor. All the assistants in his workshop were involved. His comedies were famous in Rome. We have news of them from the memoirs of travellers, fascinated not only by the plot, but also by the marvellous devices Gian Lorenzo staged.

I think of Bernini as a universal genius, one of the greatest that Italy has produced.

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References and mentioned works of art:

• Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Apollo e Dafne, Galleria Borghese, Roma

• Apollo del Belvedere, Musei Vaticani, Roma

• Gian Lorenzo Bernini, David, Galleria Borghese, Roma