Book presentation

GIOVAN LORENZO BERNINI

The “master of the world”

Tuesday 19 May 2026 - 17.30 Vatican Museums Conference Hall

PRESS RELEASE

Vatican City. On Tuesday 19 May, at 17.30, Giovanni Morello’s book “Giovan Lorenzo Bernini. Il «padron del mondo»” – “Giovan Lorenzo Bernini: The ‘master of the world’” (Edizioni Musei Vaticani) will be presented in the Conference Hall of the Vatican Museums. The book traces the life and work of the brilliant Baroque artist – sculptor, architect, painter and scenographer – charting every stage of his extraordinary career: from his early days in the workshop of his father, Pietro Bernini, to his privileged relationship with popes, cardinals and aristocrats.

The pages of the volume paint a comprehensive portrait of the artist amidst rivalries, resounding successes and unfortunate events. Giovanni Morello – who, when citing Bernini’s name, favours the form Giovan Lorenzo, considered more consistent with the artist’s own signatures, since he always signed himself “Gio. Lorenzo Bernini’ – also recounts lesser-known anecdotes, completing the picture of a career spanning over half a century, in the seventeenth century that hailed him as “master of the world”.

“More than any other”, writes Morello, “Bernini succeeded in making marble malleable, to the point of endowing it with a marvellous tenderness. No one like him, neither in his own time nor afterwards, would succeed in handling the inert blocks of marble, transforming them into figures that almost ‘breathe’, as if they were speaking”.

Rome’s monumental fountains, the Baldachin and the Cathedra of Saint Peter’s Basilica, the colonnade of Saint Peter’s square, and the stunning sculptures depicting classical myths: the author recounts the origins and complex stages of creation of all these. In addition to elegant photographic illustrations, the volume includes three detailed indexes covering archival sources, works cited and names.

The Director of the Vatican Museums, Barbara Jatta, explains: “Giovanni Morello pays homage to Bernini with this important book, which represents the culmination of decades of study, research and discoveries. ‘It is a very universal concept that he was the first to attempt to unite Architecture with Sculpture and Painting in such a way as to create a beautiful composition of all three’, wrote Baldinucci in 1682. And this beautiful composition is found in the ‘Vatican Bernini’; one need only think of the Baldachin, the Cathedra, the Scala Regia, the Monument to Constantine, the Ciborium of the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, the funerary monuments to Urban VIII, Alexander VII, Countess Matilde, the pillars of the nave, the Pasce Oves Meas and the extraordinary square that embraces all humanity, not to mention the paintings, the temporary decorations and the candelabra and crucifixes for the many altars of the Basilica created by Bernini during his long life”.

In this volume, Morello explores Bernini’s life in a chronological narrative that is also organized thematically: beginning with The Story Begins in Naples, moving on to First Steps in Rome, Michelangelo of His Time, Portraits and Self-Portraits, Facing Eight Popes, and Saint Peter’s Basilica, the narrative unfolds across thirty chapters. In each chapter, the author goes into detail, offering personal reflections whilst also providing the reader with an analysis and summary of generations of scholarship on the various aspects of Bernini’s work.

Introduced by Barbara Jatta, the speakers at the conference will include the author, the art historian and architect Francesco Petrucci, Director of the Baroque Museum at Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, and Maria Grazia Bernardini, an art historian who worked for many years at the Ministry of Culture and is the author of numerous publications on Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

The conference will be livestreamed at: https://www.youtube.com/@MuseiVaticaniMv/streams

Journalists and media operators who wish to participate must apply via the Holy See Press Office online accreditation system, at: press.vatican.va/accreditamenti

All applications must be received no later than 24 hours before the event.

Contacts

Press Office: stampa.musei@scv.va