Bernini Updates

Bernini, Church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale
oculus above main altar (foto: f. mormando)

I post here updates and corrections to my published research on Bernini,

as new archival documentation comes to light,

as well as answers to queries sent to me or arising in book reviews

(click on items below for direct links to each):

I. Regarding Domenico Bernini's Life of GLB

II. Regarding Bernini: His Life and His Rome

III. Other New Research Discoveries, Insights, and

Replies to Reviews and Queries

I. REGARDING MY 2011 EDITION OF DOMENICO BERNINI'S LIFE OF GIAN LORENZO BERNINI:

1. To download a scanned copy of the original January 1681 issue of the Mercure galant containing the Bernini obituary:

click on this link to the French website, Le Gazetier universel. For further information on the Mercure galante, see the online website, Dictionnaire des journaux 1600-1798, ed. Jean Sgard.

2. "Bellini, 2002" cited in n. 13 to the Introduction needs to be added to the Bibliography:

Bellini, Eraldo. Agostino Mascardi tra 'ars poetica' e 'ars historica' Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2002. This study by Bellini (eminent expert of the intellectural culture of Baroque Rome) is the most recent and most exhaustive of the work of Agostino Mascardi.

3. Corrections to the Index:

Index, p. 464, 1st column: "Arisosto" should be spelled "Ariosto".
ADD to Index, on p. 471, 2nd column: Boccapianola, Camilla (B's paternal grandmother), 272, n. 6.
Index, p. 479, 1st column, last line of sub-entry under "Poussin, Nicolas:" "300-101n. 25" should be "300-01n. 25".
Index, p. 480, 2n column: The "Santi" of the entry "SS [Santi] Rufina e Seconda" should be "Sante," i.e., feminine plural. (Please also note that in contemporary documents Santa Rufina is also spelled "Ruffina.")

4. Typos and Other Corrections:

Page 221 (Domenico, 162): line 8 should read: "with the proceeds of the sale of some of these drawings and modelli, a sufficient" etc. (add "and modelli")

Page 356, note 1: for "Diary of Alexander VIII," read: "Diary of Alexander VII."

Page 387, note 16: correct spelling: magnificentia

5. For further discussion of hagiography in Early Modern Italy, see:

Frazier, Alison K. Possible Lives: Authors and Saints in Renaissance Italy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.

Please note that in my discussion (in the Introduction, pp. 12-14) of hagiographic topoi as found in Domenico, I do not claim that my list of topoi is exhaustive or that there was only one model of the "saint's life" in circulation in the seventeenth century.

6. For further discussion of historiography in Early Modern Italy, see:

Grafton, Anthony. What Was History? The Art of History in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 2007.

7. For new primary-source information on Bernini's trip to Paris, see:

de La Gorce, Jérôme. "Le voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France, d'après des correspondances inédites." Confronto: Studi e ricerche di storia dell'arte europea, no. 10-11 (dicembre 2007-giugno 2008) (2007-2008): 63-72.

Among other new primary source documentation, de La Gorce prints the text of King Louis XIV's April 11, 1665 letter to Ambassador Créqui in Rome. He also prints the text of Louis's letter to Pope Alexander VII (requesting Bernini's service) as found in the archives of the French government's department of Affaires Etrangères, which bears the date of April 11, 1665, unlike the copies (from other archives) published by Baldinucci, Domenico, Clément, and Fraschetti, which bear the date of April 18. Among several other new details, the article (p. 65) cites primary source documentation of a stop at Parma by Bernini and his entourage en route to Paris. De La Gorce (p. 66) also publishes extracts from a report from the Venetian ambassador, which describes Bernini's extravagant idea of converting the entire Ile de la Cité into a royal government district, which would have entailed the razing of a massive number of buildings located there.

8. Regarding Bernini's monumental bronze crucifix commissioned by King Phillip IV of Spain (Domenico, 64 and p. 334, note 1),

a recently published article by Tomaso Montanari ("Bernini per Bernini: il secondo 'Crocifisso' monumentale." Prospettiva 136 [2009]: 2-25) adds new, illuminating data as well as correcting some minor errors of past scholarship.

The article also discusses other related bronze crucifixes, e.g., the replica of the Spanish crucifix that Bernini created for his personal use (eventually giving it as a gift to Cardinal Sforza Pallavicino) and a similar crucifix commissioned by Cardinal Antonio Barberini, Jr. in Paris. Contrary to what until recently was believed, Barberini commissioned that crucifix for himself, not as a gift for King Louis XIV of France (who received it only years later as a postmortem bequest by the cardinal's heirs). As for the Sforza Pallavicino gift-crucifix, Montanari argues that it corresponds to the one now in the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Montanari, furthermore, hypothesizes that Bernini had originally created that crucifix as a form of artistic self-defense in the wake of the embarassing "dethronement" by King Philip of his crucifix (for reasons unknown) from its place of honor in the mausoleum of the Spanish kings at El Escorial.

On the El Escorial crucifix, now see (an article I have not yet have had time to read):
García Cueto, David. "Sobre el encargo y envío a España de los Crucificados de Gian Lorenzo Bernini y Domenico Guidi para El Escorial." In Los crucificados, religiosidad, cofradías y arte. Actas del simposio 3/6-IX-2010, edited by Francisco Javier Campos, 1081-99. El Escorial: Real Centro Universitario Escorial-María Cristina, 2010.
***
As to the attribution of the Toronto crucifix, not all scholars are in agreement with Montanari that it is indeed a work by Bernini. Charles Scribner (personal communication, June 25, 2011) has written: "[L]et me go on record as saying, with as much regret, that [the Toronto crucifix] is not by Bernini. It surely derives from his crucifix for Philip IV -- or from the still lost copies he made for himself and for Barberini -- but not by Bernini himself. It lacks his distinctive tension and persuasiveness; too attenuated and 'pretty'; today it might be described as 'Bernini Lite.'" (Scribner, I might add, is author of one of the most useful, best written, and best-selling introductory books on the art of Bernini: Gianlorenzo Bernini, New York: Abrams, 1991.)
***
Update from Charles Scribner, April 14, 2012 (personal communication):
“The museum's condition report -- specifically, that the bronze was cast in 5 or 6 separate pieces -- solves, for me, the central paradoxical puzzle: namely, that parts of that highly finished bronze crucifix appear an exact, slavish copy of the Bernini original in the Escorial [something he himself never did and would never do, as he explained to Chantelou] yet others [drapery, exaggerated feet and spindly legs] seem so arbitrary and utterly lacking in Bernini's 'handwriting'. Solution: the Toronto bronze is a later casting and assemblage, not overseen by Bernini himself, comprising perhaps the original cast of the head and torso [hence an almost exact copy of the Escorial original [the differences would be due to final chasing]; if not the original cast, then perhaps one based on the original model] and added limbs and drapery, from new casts, meant to 'complete' the Bernini head and torso. Bottom line: it's an intended 'replica' of the Bernini original, finished with loving care by a pro, with added flourishes of detail meant to to be Plus-Bernini, but not by the maestro himself.”

9. Regarding Bernini's bust of the Savior:

Domenico (p. 225) describes the pose as "our Savior in half-figure ...with his right hand slightly raised, as if in the act of imparting a blessing." Like most people, I have simply understood the gesture as a blessing, pure and simple. However, as Charles Scribner explains in an article that has recently come to my attention, the issue is more complex and offers some clarification: "The unusual gesture -- clearly no simple blessing -- that [Irving] Lavin interpreted as 'an ambiguous gesture of abhorrence and protection' may more precisely , I submit, refer to the Noli me tangere of Saint John's Gospel (20:17), the first appearance of the resurrection Christ to Mary Magdalene. . . . Evoked through Christ's upturned eyes and raised hand -- an aloof, cautionary benediction -- Bernini's biblical allusion would have been reinforced by the angels [of the intended but never executed pedestal] that, with hands covered, raised the divine effigy above the touch of mortals.... Considered afresh in its original context, as a sacramental apotheosis, the Savior may finally come into focus" (Charles Scribner III, "Transfigurations: Bernini's Last Works," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 135.4 (1991):490-509, here 507.

Bernini's final (and recently rediscovered) sculpture: Bust of the Savior (1679), San Sebastiano in Via Appia (photo courtesy of Charles Scribner, III)

10. An English translation of Rudolph Preimesberger's essay on Bernini's The Goat Almathea with the Infant Jupiter and a Satyr (first published in 2002 in Bernini scultore, ed. A. Coliva)

is now available in the recently published collection of his essays, Paragons and Paragone (Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute Publications Program, 2011). Still considered virtually universally as Bernini's first independent work of sculpture, it is discussed in my Domenico edition on p. 279, n. 13. I would add to that note the fact (cited by Preimesberger, 2011, 54) that contemporary writer and artist Joachim von Sandrart describes the work as Bernini's "first famous work" (sein erst berühmtes Werk), attesting to the success of the sculpture as a paragon of overcoming the difficultas of treating such a theme in marble.

11. For more on Filippo Maria Bonini and his L'ateista convinto dalle sole ragioni (Venice, 1665),

cited on p. 314, n. 27 and p. 414, n. 9 (for criticism of Bernini's work on the Four Piers of St. Peter's), now see: Tomaso Montanari, "Roma 1665: il rovescio della medaglia. L'ateista convinto dalle sole ragioni dell'abbate Filippo Maria Bonini," Ricerche di storia dell'arte 96 (2008): 41-56. Bonini's book, ostensibly a series of dialogues between an open-minded atheista and a convinced Jansenist, is actually a vehicle for Bonini to deliver biting satires of various aspects of contemporary Rome, especially the world of the Roman (papal) court and of the art world in its multiple dimensions.

12. To the bibliography cited in note 23 on page 422 regarding Bernini's various busts of Pope Clement X Altieri (mid-1670s),

add the good, succinct, thorough discussion by Lisa Beaven, "Bernini's Last Papal Portrait and its Audience: The Statue of Pope Clement X Altieri," in The Italians in Australia: Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art, ed. David R. Marshall, 95-106, Florence: Centro Di; Melbourne: The Membership fo the Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, 2004.

13. Regarding Cardinal Maffeo Barberini's desire to have the young Bernini complete an unfinished statue by Michelangelo (Domenico, my note 10 on p. 279), see:

Frommel, Christoph Luitpold, "Michelangelo, Bernini e le due statue del Cristo risorto." In Società, cultura e vita religiosa in età moderna: studi in onore di Romeo De Maio, ed. Luigi Gulia, Ingo Herklotz and Stefano Zen (Sora: Centro di studi sorani Vincenzo Patriarca, 2009), 177-215, esp. 195-201 for Bernini discussion.

Evidence now seems to point to the Michelangelo statue in question as the second, only rudimentarily "roughed out" Resurrected Christ (the first being that in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome). It was, instead, Vincenzo Giustiniani (not Maffeo Barberini) who ended up purchasing the work in late 1618 or early 1619 and who, it would seem, commissioned the young Bernini to bring it to completion in the same period. Bernini's finished product is -- though the attribution is not universally agreed upon -- the statue now located in the church of San Vincenzo, in Bassano Romano. Rather than a "completion" of work started by Michelangelo, Bernini's statue is, in effect, a near-entirely separate creation, done in a sedate neo-classical style in accordance, one presumes, with the tastes of the patron. Michelangelo stopped work on the statue because of a long, vertical black vein that came to the surface on the face of the figure: in the Bassano Romano Resurrected Christ, Bernini -- if he is indeed the author -- cleverly minimizes the impact of that vein by having it coincide with a crease or fold of skin, running alongside the nose and mouth.

14. For more information on Chantelou' Diary as primary source for Bernini's life, see the various essays from the November 2007 symposium devoted to the diary (held at the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris) now published in the volume edited by Ferdinando Bologna, Confronto: Studi e ricerche di storia dell'arte europea, n. 10-11 dicembre 2007 - giugno 2008 (Naples: Paparo, 2009).

15. As mentioned in my notes 23 on p. 346 and 27 on page 354, yet another reminder that during the early years of the reign of the anti-Barberini (and thus anti-Bernini) Pope Innocent X Pamphilj -- that is, before the Spring 1648 reconciliation between pope and artist with the granting of the Piazza Navona Fountain commission -- Bernini did not suffer total exclusion from important papal projects is the newly publicized fact that in Spring 1647 Bernini was commissioned to sculpt two statues (Sts. Luke and Bartholomew) for the niches of the nave of the Basilica of San Giovanni Laterano, which was undergoing major renovations by Borromini, under the supervision of Virgilio Spada (the pope's deputy in matters of art and architecture). This was a major project, involving all the eminent sculptors of Rome. We know of this project and Bernini's commission from the papers of Virgilio Spada. For reasons unknown Bernini never completed the statues, but we have several drawings (in Leipzig) and one clay modello (in the Museo di Roma) attesting to his preparatory work on the statue of St. Luke. For all of the preceding see: Tomaso Montanari, "Bernini in Laterano: Una nuova lettura per sette disegni berniniani a Lipsia," in Dessins de Sculpteurs, II: Quatrièmes rencontres internationales du Salon du Dessin, 25 et 26 mars 2009, ed. Cordelia Hattori (Société du Salon du dessin, 2009): 69-78.

16. New bibliography on Bernini's Triton Fountain in Piazza Barberini (1642-43), described by Domenico, 60-61:

(a) Averett, Matthew. "Bernini's Triton Fountain: War and Fountains in the Rome of Urban VIII." Journal of Religion and Society: Supplement Series. "Religion and the Visual," ed. Ronald A. Simkins and Wendy M. Wright. Supplement 8 (2012): 119-32.
(sheds convincing new light on the "concetto," the political-literary symbolism, of the fountain and its cultural-political resonance in the early 1640s.)
(b) Curzietti, Jacopo. "Gian Lorenzo e Luigi Bernini. Nuovi documenti per la fontana del Tritone in piazza Barberini." Storia dell'arte 125/126 (2010): 110-23. (the new documents help us understand which workers did which components, most notable is the fact that Luigi sculpted the statue of Triton himself based on his brother's design.)

17. New article on Bernini's portrait (and self-portrait) drawings, (discussed on p. 296n12 and 298n18):

Sutherland Harris, Ann. "Bernini's Portrait Drawings: Context and Connoisseurship." Sculpture Journal 20, no. 2 (2011): 163-78. In this article, the author presents a hitherto unpublished drawing in a private collection in London: Profile Portrait of an Unknown Man, red chalk on light beige paper, Fig. 16, p. 173. (Happily, Sutherland Harris is now completing a new, much-needed edition of all of Bernini's drawings, of which about 300 are extant.)

18. Regarding Bernini's bust of King Louis XIV (Domenico, 132):

I neglected to mention that according to the Memoirs of Charles Perrault (who had arranged for the delivery of the marble for the bust), it was Bernini who "as soon as he arrived . . . proposed doing a bust of the King" (1989, ed. and trans. J. Zarucchi, p. 61). Perrault is the only source to claim this. (In n. 26 on the same page, Zarucchi quotes a Jne 22, 1665 letter from Perrault to Colbert, discussing the fact that Bernini, however, has found every excuse not to do a full-sized statue of the king.) In any event, Bernini, as mentioned in my notes, probably came to Paris prepared for such a task, bringing with him his principal assistant in sculpture, Giulio Cartari.

19. Regarding Costanza Bonarelli (more properly, Bonucelli), Bernini's mistress (Domenico, 27):

With the publication of Sarah McPhee's Bernini's Beloved: A Portrait of Costanza Piccolomini (Yale UP, 2012), we now possess much new information about the hitherto mysterious Costanza and her life before and after the violent affair with Bernini. Very little of new is communicated about Bernini or his works (except for the author's sensitive reading of the Costanza bust as a work of art and an expression of Baroque feminine allure). Note that, as the primary source documentation that McPhee publishes in appendix, Costanza's married name was legally and without a doubt "Bonucelli," and not "Bonarelli," as usually rendered in past literature. Yet, she usually referred to herself by her maiden name, Piccolomini, as she is named by Filippo Baldinucci in the catalogue of Bernini's works appended to his 1682 life of the artist.

20. Bernini as a "man without letters" (see my introduction to Domenico, pp. 58-60):

Pertinent to this topic is a January 1639 letter by contemporary poet and diplomat, Fulvio Testi, that boasts (as elsewhere) of his close friendship with Bernini and that happens to mention that the artist "sa molto anche di belle lettere" (also knows much about literature). The letter is #403, vol. 1, pp. 432-33 in the 1967 edition of Testi's letters edited by M. L. Doglio.

21. Bernini as the Michelangelo of his age:
For yet another detail from Michelangelo's biography that is also attributed to Bernini is his capacity of working on his art until a state of exhaustion and requiring only little food and drink to sustain him: see Domenico, p. 179 and Vasari's "Life of Michelangelo" (in Vasari, Artists of the Renaissance. A Selection from Lives of the Artists, trans. George Bull, New York: Viking, 1978, 289).

22. Bernini's use of clay models, especially for the bust of Louis XIV:

For Bernini's clay models in general, now see the essential exhibition catalogue:

Dickerson III, C.D., Anthony Sigel, and Ian Wardropper. Bernini: Scultpting in Clay. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.

***

In his essay in the aforementioned catalogue, Tomaso Montanari corrects a long-standing error first put in print by Rudolf Wittkower and subsequently repeated by various scholars (including me, on. p. 388, n. 18): p. 70, n.46: “If Chantelou appears never to have seen any bozzetti for the king’s bust, he was certainly aware of a single, presumably lifesize modello, to which he made repeated reference in his diary.” [See Chantelou, 1985 ed., June 24, p. 40; June 27, p. 43; June 30, pp.44-45; July 1, pp. 46-49; and July 13, p. 60.]. TM, p. 70, n.47: “Wittkower did not believe there was such a work, but in fact it was commented on by, and subject to the approval of, various figures at court..." including Colbert: see Chantelou, 1985, July 1, p. 48: "M. Colbert then saw the model for royal bust"; also reference to the modello in a letter by Mattia de' Rossi from Paris to Rome.

II. REGARDING MY BERNINI: HIS LIFE AND HIS ROME:

PAGES XVII-XIX: MONEY, WAGES, AND COST OF LIVING IN BAROQUE ROME:

For further data on the economy of Baroque Rome, see the recently published Painting for Profit: The Economic Lives of Seventeenth-Century Italian Painters by Richard Spear and Philip Sohm (Yale University Press, with contributions by Ago, Fumagalli, Goldthwaite, Marshall, and Morselli), especially pp. 33-40, discussing currency, incomes, food, rent, and other costs of living. The authors do not attempt a conversion from 17th-century papal scudi to modern American dollars, as I do. In any event, all that I have read or been told since writing my own preface on the subject does not change my educated guess at such a conversion, namely, 25,000 scudi = (approximately and conservatively) about one million dollars today.

An additional useful point of fact regarding the typica salaries of seventeenth-century Romans comes from Renata Ago, Economia barocca (Rome: Donzelli, 1998, pp. 8-9) who reports that the average wage of a skilled worker ("operaio specializzato") in Rome in the 1620s was 3 scudi per month. Ago's otherwise excellent book does not give much data by way of wages and cost of living in Baroque Rome; but on pp. 169-70, we find a couple of interesting data points: in 1627, a Roman woman living in a two-room attic appartment (rione not identified) was paying 8 giulii per month (1 giulio =10 baiocchi; 100 baiocchi = 1 scudo); in rione Regola another Roman was paying 10 scudi per year (type of appartment not identified), which amounts to a similar monthly rental cost. On a higher level of transaction (Ago, op. cit., 169), the "Illustrissimo Signor Antonio del Drago" in 1628 was renting an entire Roman patrician palazzo from Duke Cesarini for 300 scudi per year.

PAGES 9-10: CHANTELOU'S DIARY AS PRIMARY SOURCE FOR BERNINI'S LIFE:

for more information about the diary, its author and contents, see the various essays from the November 2007 symposium devoted to the diary (held at the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris) now published in the volume edited by Ferdinando Bologna, Confronto: Studi e ricerche di storia dell'arte europea, n. 10-11 dicembre 2007 - giugno 2008 (Naples: Paparo, 2009).

PAGE 15: BERNINI'S DOWNPLAYING OF HIS NEAPOLITAN ROOTS:

These two papers given at the 2012 Renaissance Society of American Annual Meeting perhaps offer additional reasons why Bernini, throughout his life, hardly made mention at all of his birth and childhood in Naples: the Neapolitan character did not have such a great reputation in the rest of Europe, especially with regards to artistic temperament and genius:

(1) Thomas Willette, University of Michigan, “Spanish Vices and the Character of Neapolitan Artists” (Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, 2012, Washington DC, Program: Session 20325, p. 305):

“One of Vasari’s explanations for the poverty of the arts of design in Naples is that the geography and climate of southern Italy are inhospitable to genius. That certain defects are inherent in the complexion of Neapolitans was well established. Vainglory and jealousy, exacerbated by a preoccupation with personal honor and disdain for civic virtue, are among the national traits reported by outsiders and insiders alike….”

(2) Livio Pestilli, Trinity College, Rome Campus, “The Napoletaneità of Neapolitan Artists” (Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, 2012, Washington DC, Program: Session 20425, p. 338):

“In describing Salvator Rosa’s peculiar personality, the Umbrian Giambattista Passeri claimed the artist’s vainglorious character was a disposition common to all Neapolitans. In Passeri’s view, Rosa’s narcissism and vanity were not just ascribable to the painter’s personal character. Rather, ‘These qualities were typical national traits that he could not eradicate, since they were inherited from the local climate.’ Two generations earlier, don Pietro d’Aragona, who in 1668 had begun a radical attempt to eliminate brigandage in the Kingdom of Naples, believed banditry was an inevitable evil ‘por ser natural en el genio de la nacion.’”

PAGES 17-18: ROME AT THE TIME OF BERNINI'S ARRIVAL THERE:

Sarah McPhee, Bernini's Beloved, 2012, 27 (citing the research ofr Thomas Dandelet), mentions the interesting statistic that in early 17th-century Rome, about 25% of the city's population was comprised by Hispanic nationals (that is, Spanish and Portuguese).

PAGE 42: MAFFEO BARBERINI WANTED BERNINI TO COMPLETE MICHELANGELO STATUE:

see note 13 above in the previous section on Domenico's bio.

PAGE 75: PAINTED PORTRAIT OF DUKE FRANCESCO d'ESTE IN BERNINI'S ART COLLECTION:

It was only after my Bernini biography went to publication that I realized that the portrait of Francesco d'Este listed in the Bernini post-mortem inventory must be the painting done by Justus Suttermans and sent to Bernini in 1650 or 1651 as the basis for his sculpted portrait in marble of the duke.

PAGES 91 AND 338: BONINI'S L'ATEISTA CONVINTO DALLE SOLE RAGIONI:

For more on Filippo Maria Bonini and his L'ateista convinto dalle sole ragioni (Venice, 1665), cited on pp. 91 and 338 (for criticism of Bernini's work on the Four Piers of St. Peter's), see note 11 above in previous section on Domenico's biography.

PAGES 99-109: BERNINI'S MISTRESS, COSTANZA "BONARELLI" (BONUCELLI):

Some further additions and corrections to the record, afforded by McPhee's new book:

1. Costanza was living in the Vicolo Scanderberg closer to the center of town (her house and her street are still extant) at the time of her affair with Bernini, not in the Santa Marta neighborhood near St. Peter's, as previously believed and as reported in my book (p. 102; see McPhee, 37 and 216, n. 3).

2. Unlike most women of her age, Costanza could read and write, as we know from a surviving letter in her hand (McPhee, 59-60). On the other hand, Bernini's mother, Angelica Galante (as I suggest on p. 101) was illiterate, for as McPhee points out (p. 59) she had to sign her last will and testament with a cross, not a real signature.

3. Until now we knew nothing of what happened to Costanza as a result of the affair. Did she suffer any consequences, legal or otherwise? We now know answers to such questions: see McPhee, 52ff. Costanza's husband, Matteo Bonucelli (the artist and Bernini workshop collaborator) apparently did not denounce her to the authorities, it was some unnamed eyewitness or neighbor. She suffered imprisonment for her crime and probably other punishments, as McPhee, 54, describes: "For women there were prescribed rituals of public humiliation and mandatory confinement. If Costanza's punishment followed the legal course [as it would seem], she was whipped, shorn of her famous locks, and sent to the Casa Pia [at Santa Chiara, behind the Pantheon] to await her husband's forgiveness." It is certain that Costanza suffered a painful four-month period of imprisonment at Santa Chiara, as we know from a plea written in her own hand sent from there. (She mentions hunger and other deprivation, her husband refusing to send her food and other forms of succor). Costanza's plea to the Governatore di Roma was heard and her release was approved in early April 1639.

4. Contrary to what I report in my biography (p. 105), Costanza did not voluntarily leave a post-mortem bequest to the convent of the Convertite: by law all female "criminals" of her type ("wayward women"!) were obliged to leave one-third of their estate to the Convertite, which is one of the ways in which that establishment maintained itself financially.

5. The destiny of Bernini's bust of Costanza after the end of their affair: in reality, as McPhee points out (see her summary discussion of the question on pp. 217-18, n. 35), that the documentation regarding the post-affair vicissitudes of the Costanza bust is -- once again in Bernini scholarship -- frustratingly incomplete and hence we cannot with complete certainty and thoroughness reconstruct this piece of Bernini history. We know for certain that by November 2, 1646 the bust was in the Medici granducal collection in Florence, seen there by a French visitor to the gallery, Balthasar de Monconys (Montanari, 2009, p. 329 in the exh. cat. I marmi vivi). What is not certain is how it got there: the report by Montanari (and repeated by me on p. 109) that it had been given as a gift by Bernini to Cardinal Giovanni Carlo de' Medici comes from an anonymous contemporary recorded among the notes gathered by Florentine biographer Filippo Baldinucci while he was researching his Bernini biography (published in Florence 1682). However, as McPhee mentions, there is no record of the gift in the cardinal's inventories, where one would expect to find it.

At the same time, we have a letter dated July 18, 1640 from Francesco Mantovani, the Roman agent of the Duke of Modena, reporting that the Costanza bust was going to be sent to Modena as a gift to the duke from Monsignor Annibale Bentivoglio, to be delivered by Donna Mathilde Bentivoglio (who, we know from an avviso, departed Rome for Modena on July 21). McPhee does not say whether the inventories of the ducal collection in Modena confirms receipt of the bust, or if indeed any other document confirms arrival of the bust in Modena. Some scholars (Zanuso and Zikos) suggest that Cardinal Giovanni Carlo de' Medici may have instead received the bust from the same Annibale Bentivoglio who was not only a relative of his but also the papal nunzio (ambassador) to the Medici court of Florence.

********

In any case, my point (p. 109) that Bernini's poor wife, Caterina, had to endure the sight and memory of he husband's former mistress, Costanza, in her very own home after her marriage to the artist remains valid: not only did Bernini still have in his studio at home his double painted portrait of Costanza and himself but the terracotta modello (presumably full-size and in final state of execution) of the Costanza marble bust (seen there by Antonio Ferragallo as he mentions in his Jan. 25, 1641 letter to Cardinal Jules Mazarin. However, if contrary to the Mantovani letter of 1640 stating that the bust was being sent to Modena, the bust never made it to Modena, the Costanza bust seen by Ferragallo could have been the marble original and not the terracotta modello (unfortunately in reporting the several busts he saw in Bernini's studio, Ferragallo does not distinguish between marble originals and terracotta modelli; some of the busts he saw, except perhaps Costanza, had had to have been in fact terracotta modelli, since the marble originals had long been delivered to their intended recipients). In the 1681 inventory of Bernini's possessions compiled just a couple of months after his death, there is no specific mention of the Costanza bust in marble or terracotta; however, the "testa di donna" on display right next to Bernini's self-portrait in the "Prima stanza contigua all'Anticamera" (cc.504v in the original document; p. 255 in the published version in Martinelli, 1996, L'ultimo Bernini).

PAGE 116: EXTINCTION OF THE BERNINI FAMILY NAME:

Virtually all the Italian scholars (most notably, Ameyden-Bertini, Storia delle famiglie romane, 1910-14 ed.) consulted by me and who discuss the ultimate destiny of the Bernini family claim that Prospero Bernini (d. 1858) was the artist's last direct descendant (through Bernini son, Paolo). It would be more accurate to say "last direct descendant" on the male line of the family, since at least one or two of Bernini's three married daughters, Angelica Bernini Landi, Maria Maddalena Bernini Luccatelli, and Dorotea Bernini de Filippo, presumably produced heirs. (I have received an email from one Italian American who claims descent from Bernini through one of these female lines, according to his family oral tradition.) Besides Paolo, Bernini had one other married son, Domenico Stefano (his biographer) who produced heirs, Giovanni Lorenzo, Angela, and Caterina, but nothing is known at all of their destiny. At present, the Forti family of Rome (inasmuch as they are descendants of the Concetta Caterina Galletti mentioned on this page of the biography) claim the title of "Bernini's descendants." (Augusto Forti, who wrote for the Strenna dei Romanisti and who died, I believe in the 1960s, was a member of this family).

PAGES 127-28: BERNINI'S SLY MANEUVER TO OBTAIN ORATORIAN RENTAL PROPERTY (1640):

this episode is discussed in Chapter 2, pp. 127-28 of the biography, based upon the account given by Russo in the 1976 issue of Strenna dei Romanisti. A new account, based on the same archival documents, has now been published by Lothar Sickel: "Virgilio Spada im Streit mit Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Eine merkwürdige Episode in der unbekannten Geschichte des Palazzo Cybo," in Ordnung und Wandel in der römischen Architektur der Frühen Neuzeit: Kunsthistorische Studien zu Ehren von Christof Thoenes, eds.Hermann Schlimme and Lothar Sickel (Munich: Hirmer, 2011), pp. 215-34. As far as Bernini is concerned, no significant new details are reported by Sickel that had not already been reported by Russo (who is not cited by Sickel), except to identify the property in question as the Palazzo Cybo and the "Cardinal Barberini" who intervened on Bernini's behalf (with a payment of 50 scudi) as Cardinal Antonio, Junior. Sickel does, however, publish in appendix the texts of all the relevant documents and provides extensive information about Palazzo Cybo.

Sickel also reproduces a contemporary portrait of Virgilio Spada, Bernini's Oratorian opponent and writer of the original memorandum about this episode, located in the Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome. For more on Virgilio and the Spada family, see the website prepared by a Spada descendant:

http://casatospada.blog.tiscali.it/2008/04/04/virgilio_spada_fratello_del_cardinale_bernardino_1878403-shtml/

PAGE 149, LINE 4: TYPO ERROR:

for "cardinal of colleges," read: "College of Cardinals"

PAGE 150: BERNINI'S CAREER IN THE EARLY YEARS OF THE REIGN OF THE HOSTILE POPE INNOCENT X: A NEW 1647 COMMISSION IN THE LATERAN:

Yet another reminder that during the early years of the reign of the anti-Barberini (and thus anti-Bernini) Pope Innocent X Pamphilj -- that is, before the Spring 1648 reconciliation between pope and artist with the granting of the Piazza Navona Fountain commission -- Bernini did not suffer total exclusion from important papal projects is the newly publicized fact that in Spring 1647 Bernini was commissioned to sculpt two statues (Sts. Luke and Bartholomew) for the niches of the nave of the Basilica of San Giovanni Laterano, which was undergoing major renovations by Borromini, under the supervision of Virgilio Spada (the pope's deputy in matters of art and architecture). This was a major project, involving all the eminent sculptors of Rome. We know of this project and Bernini's commission from the papers of Virgilio Spada. For reasons unknown Bernini never completed the statues, but we have several drawings (in Leipzig) and one clay modello (in the Museo di Roma) attesting to his preparatory work on the statue of St. Luke. For this see: Tomaso Montanari, "Bernini in Laterano: Una nuova lettura per sette disegni berniniani a Lipsia," In Dessins de Sculpteurs, II: Quatrièmes rencontres internationales du Salon du Dessin, 25 et 26 mars 2009, ed. Cordelia Hattori (Société du Salon du dessin, 2009): 69-78.

PAGES 159-61: BERNINI'S FAMOUS BEL COMPOSTO:

In these pages, I describe Bernini's St. Teresa/Cornaro Chapel as an example of his "famous bel composto" ("beautiful whole"). I am here employing the term in the way it has been used by modern art historians (popularized by Irving Lavin in 1980) to refer to Bernini's creation of a complex work of art (e.g., a chapel) in which multiple forms of art (painting, sculpture, architecture) are expertly employed together, blending seamlessly with each other so as to create an aesthetically unified, integral whole. The term comes from Filippo Baldinucci's Life of Bernini (in Domenico Bernini's Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, it is called the "maraviglioso composto"). But, in fact, as I discuss in the Introduction to my 2011 edition of Domenico's biography, pp. 46-49, summarizing recent scholarship on the question (by Montanari and Delbeke), that modern meaning of the term is NOT found in or can be inferred from either Baldinucci or Domenico or any other primary source. Baldinucci uses the term to refer only and specifically to Bernini's painterly approach to his architecture, whereas Domenico (to the extent that one can decipher his meaning) refers to the blending of the forms of art within Bernini's own mind.

PAGE 204: OPEN SEWER RUNNING THROUGH THE CENTER OF ROME:
For a description of this sewer, the "Chiavica di San Silvestro," finally covered up by Pope Pius V in 1571 (as one of his many hydraulic improvement projects), see Katherine Rinne, "Urban ablutions: cleansing Counter-Reformation Rome," in Rome, Pollution and Propriety: Dirt, Disease and Hygiene in the Eternal City from Antiquity to Modernity (Cambridge University Press for the British School at Rome, 2012), p. 197 (article is 182-201): "The Chiavica di San Silvestro, an open drain that ran through the Campo Marzio, had been a notorious health hazard since at least the fifteenth century. It ran for almost two kilometres from the Trevi Fountain to the Tiber..."

PAGE 208-11: ORDINARY ROMANS FORGOTTEN IN THE "RENOVATIO ROMAE:"

In Chapter 4, the point is made, citing contemporary complaints, that much of the restoration and aggrandizement projects of the papal Renovatio Romae of the early modern period did not benefit the ordinary citizens of Rome. The above-cited Waters of Rome by Katherine Rinne, page 155, confirms this observation, citing the case of the many new fountains:

"The civic fountains that ornamented Rome in the early 1620s were unequalled by those in any other European city for centuries to come. Alive with impressive jets, abundant sprays, rushing cascades, spangled rains, and swirling pools, these fountains attracted wide attention. They impressed visiting dignitaries and pilgrims, increased the prestige of the city, and burnished the reputations of the popes who had sponsored them. Yet, even a cursory glance at their uses shows that provision was rarely made for day-to-day needs. In fact, they appear to have been relatively useless for average Romans who needed a dedicated drinking supply for themselves and their animals; water for domestic tasks such as cooking, bathing, irrigating kitchen gardens, and washing clothes; or a source of water for industrial procedures like manufacturing paper or wool cloth."

Related to this observation is the statistic cited by Rinne, page 181, that by 1623 80% of the aqueduct water supply of Rome was claimed by cardinals, nobles, monasteries, and charitable organizations.

PAGE 209: LORENZO PIZZATTI'S URBAN IMPROVEMENT SUGGESTIONS:

For a detailed examination of those suggestions, now see Dorothy Metzger Habel, "When All of Rome Was Under Construction": The Building Process in Baroque Rome (Penn State UP, 2013), pp. 133-68.

PAGE 231: DEATH OF DONNA OLIMPIA MAIDALCHINI PAMPHILJ:

Thanks to my Roman friend, Dr. Leonardo Tondo, I give you here a photograph of the inscription on the simple tomb of Donna Olimpia in the church of the village of San Martino al Cimino (Viterbo), the Pamphilj fiefdom which she helped to re-design and which she ruled as "Principessa di San Martino." Of note in the inscription is the absence of reference (as is usual in funerary inscriptions) to any grieving relative as the one who saw to her proper burial and memorialization -- not surprising given that she was universally hated, even by her family, it would seem. Instead, it was Donna Olimpia herself who made the plans for her burial:

Inscription on Donna Olimpia's grave, San Martino al Cimino
(photo courtesy of Dr. Leonardo Tondo)

PAGES 232-33: for BERNINI'S CHURCH OF SANT'ANDREA AL QUIRINALE (and the JESUIT NOVITIATE COMPLEX), now see:

Joannes Terhalle, S. Andrea al Quirinale von Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Rom: Von den anfängen bis zur grundsteinlegung. Weimar: Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschafen, 2011.

-- This is a comprehensive, detailed study, which publishes much new primary source documentation. (Please note, however, that the correct first name of Jesuit cardinal, Sforza Pallavicino, is Sforza, not the inexplicable "Pietro" that someone a long time ago gave him (probably assuming that the "P." found in front of his name was an abbreviation for "Pietro," whereas it is the abbreviation for his title, "Pater" or "Padre." Too many scholars have simply repeated and thus perpetuated this error. (I am happy to report that my letter on the subject to the U.S. Library of Congress and the British Library was successful in getting them to correct their own entries on Pallavicino.)

PAGES 237-38: BERNINI'S ROLE IN THE GAULLI COMMISSION FOR THE CEILING FRESCOS IN THE CHURCH OF THE GESU:
the most recent discussion thereof is now: Jacopo Curzietti, Giovan Battista Gaulli: La decorazione della chiesa del SS. Nome di Gesù (Rome: Gangemi, 2011), pp. 41-51.

PAGE 254: COLBERT'S CRITICISM OF BERNINI'S LOUVRE DESIGN:

on p. 254, I say: "Colbert found many things wrong [with Bernini's Louvre design] on all fronts" -- yes, all fronts EXCEPT, as I explain on the next page, stylistic: that is to say, contrary to what you will frequently enough read in the Bernini literature on this question, no where in the documentation is any element of any of Bernini's five Louvre designs ever crticized for its artistic style, namely, for being "too Baroque," "too extravagant" or "too Roman."

PAGES 257-58: THE HARROWING EXPERIENCE OF CROSSING THE ALPS OVER THE MT. CENIS PASS

One of the oft-cited letters of the famous Horace Walpole gives us an extremely vivid, first-hand account of the frightening experience of crossing the Alps, confirming my own description: the letter is dated November 11, 1739, written from Turin to Richard West. (Walpole, by the way, says it took 8 days to get from Lyon to Turin, 4 of which were spent in crossing the Alps.) The letter can be found in any collection of Walpole's correspondence, which has been published several times. In the London 1798 edition of The Works of Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford, 5 vols., available through Google Books, it can found in vol. 4, pp. 431-32.

For further information about the practicalities of crossing the Alps in the seventeenth century (routes, difficulties, terrors, etc.), see Laurent Bolard, Le voyage des peintres en Italia au XVIIe siècle (Paris: Realia / Les Belles Lettres, 2012), pp. 36-39.

See the 1755 drawing by George Keate (1729-97), A Manner of Passing Mount Cenis (British Museum), showing a traveller being borne across the Alps in a sedan chair carried by two porters (cat. 50, p. 100) in the exhibition catalogue, Grand Tour: The Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth Century (London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 1996).

PAGE 268ff: CHARLES PERRAULT AND BERNINI: A NEW REVISIONIST VIEW

An important new article is forthcoming in Renaissance Studies (for those who have electronic subscriptions to the journal it is already accessible under "Early Views"): "Perrault's memoirs and Bernini: a reconsideration" by Jeanne Morgan Zarucchi of the University of Missouri at St. Louis. In it, Prof. Zarucchi gently takes me and other scholars to task, who simply followed without question the judgement of Cecil Gould's 1982 Bernini in France, and have painted a thoroughly negative view of Perrault as Bernini's nemesis in Paris who worked hard to defeat Bernini at Louis XIV's court. By reading with fresh, impartial eyes exactly what and how Perrault says about Bernini in his Memoirs and by comparing his accounts with those of other, more pro-Bernini primary sources (suchas Chantelou), Zarucchi persuasively shows that in fact such a negative view of Perrault is unsustainable.

Though, of course, we do not know what Perrault said and did outside of what he chooses to tell us in his Memoirs -- the existence of the anti-Bernini cabal at the French court is affirmed by Chantelou and it is hard to imagine that Perrault simply stayed clear of it -- I still am convinced by Prof. Zarucchi's well-researched argument that Perrault, as she says, "may in fact be a reasonably reliable witness in regard to Bernini's character and personality" (I, in fact ,quote Perrault extensively in my Bernini, having believed that there was at least a kernel of truth in what he said, even if colored by his supposed opposition to Bernini). Furthermore, Prof. Zarucchi concludes, there is not enough evidence to characterize Perrault -- as I do (Bernini, 268) -- as "a leading member of the French cabal organized to defeat Bernini at court."

PAGE 272: INTENDED ROYAL RECIPIENT OF PAOLO BERNINI'S CHRIST CHILD SCULPTURE:

Please correct my lapsus: the intended recipient of the sculpture was indeed, King Louis XIV's wife but her name was Maria Teresa, daughter of King Philip IV of Spain and Elizabeth, daughter of King Henri IV of France. Henrietta Anne was the wife of Louis's brother, Philippe, the Duke of Orléans, known simply as "Monsieur." Maria Teresa is correctly identified as Louis's wife on p. 245. The error on p. 272 was discovered during the process of compiling the Index when the corrected page proofs had already been sent to the printer; it was supposed to be corrected by the printer, but was not. This explains why in the Index under "Marie Thérèse (Maria Teresa), Queen of France," you will find a citation to both pp. 245 and 272.

PAGE 280: TRANSLATION OF "VERO RITRATTO DI VERO CRUCIFIXO"

Some scholars translate this literally as "the true portrait of the true crucifix," whereas I believe the proper translation is "the true likeness of the Crucified One (i.e., Jesus Christ)". I believe Bernini's (and Perrault's) contemporaries would have readily understood this as a reference to the famous holy relic of the so-called "true likeness" of Jesus, several different versions of which were (are) found in different parts of Christendom, East and West, known by various names: the "Vera Icona," the "Volto Santo," the "Mandylion," and "Veronica's Veil," the latter referrring to the pious legend according to which Jesus impressed his likeness upon the veil used by Veronica to wipe his face on the way to his crucifixion. For Bernini, the most familiar and perhaps the authentic "true likeness" of Jesus was the relic preserved in St. Peter's Basilica in one of the four piers under its dome, deocrated by Bernini himself in the 1620s, and bearing the statue of St. Veronica. Moreover, to translate the word "crucifixo" as "crucifix" begs the question: Which "true crucifix"? There was no such thing. A crucifix is a cross bearing a corpus, that is, a representation of the body of Jesus in some medium (ivory, metal, paint, etc.). Minus the corpus, the object is called simply a "cross," in Italian, "croce," as in the name of the Roman Basilica of "Santa Croce in Gerusalemme," which housed a relic, that is, a piece of the "true cross" supposedly found by St. Helena in the 4th century. St. Helena is honored in yet another of the four piers under the cupola of St. Peter's decorated by Bernini, this same pier housing yet another piece of the "true cross." As Catholics well knew, the "true cross" found by Helena had long been splintered into hundreds of pieces scattered as relics across all of Christendom. Finally on a linguistic note, in Italian, the word "ritratto" (portrait) is almost never used to refer to anything other than the likeness of a person, and not an inanimate object.

PAGE 309: the 1623 editing of Michelangelo's homoerotic poetry by his grand-nephew, Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger:

For the latest detailed discussion of this "reputation-saving" revisions of Michelangelo's love poetry in the first published edition, now see Janie Cole, Music, Spectacle and Cultural Brokerage in Early Modern Italy: Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovani (2 vols., Florence: Olschki, 2011), pp. 39-45 (see n.71 on p. 42 for other detailed discussions of this well-known fact).

PAGE 331: BERNINI AND WATER:

On page 331, mention is made of Bernini's being granted authorization to draw water from the public water supply to feed a private fountain on his property in Via della Mercede. New research by Katherine Rinne (The Waters of Rome: Aqueducts, Fountains, and the Birth of the Baroque City, Yale UP, 2010, pages 185-186) now shows that Bernini had earlier received access to personal use of the public water supply as part of his "reward" for aqueduct restoration for Pope Urban VIII: "When the [Aqua] Felice restoration was complete, Urban gave Gian Lorenzo an oncia of Felice water . . . Then, between 1640 and 1642, Bernini received another twelve oncie of Felice water, which he could use however he pleased, as part of his payment for the Triton and Bee Fountains in Piazza Barberini."

For more on the hydraulic history of Rome from antiquity onward, see Rinne's website, Aquae Urbis Romae: the Waters of the City of Rome.

PAGES 341-42: BERNINI'S FEAR OF DIVINE JUDGMENT:

A further reminder of the pervasive element of fear of God in the popular preaching and catechesis of early modern Roman Catholicism is this passage from St. Ignatius Loyola, a saint very familiar to Bernini:

"Although serving God our Lord much out of pure love is to be esteemed above all; we ought to praise much the fear of His Divine Majesty, because not only filial fear is a thing pious and most holy, but even servile fear -- when the man reaches nothing else better or more useful -- helps much to get out of mortal sin. And when he is out, he easily comes to filial fear, which is all acceptable and grateful to God our Lord: as being at one with the Divine Love." – St. Ignatius Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises, "To have the true sentiment which we ought to have in the Church Militant," Eighteenth Rule (trans. Elder Mullan SJ, 1914).

III. OTHER NEW RESEARCH DISCOVERIES, INSIGHTS, AND REPLIES TO REVIEWS AND QUERIES:

An answer to the question raised of my book: "Why so much scandal about Bernini, his family, his patrons, and in general, the Rome of his lifetime?," see my article published (October 11, 2012) in the online journal, Berfrois: Intellectual Jousting in the Republic of Letters.

The Intellectually Dishonest Professional Book Review

"This happens ALL the time:" In a public lecture at Boston College (April 12, 2012), Sam Tannenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review, responded to my question about what editors like he do when they receive a badly written, intellectually dishonest, negative book review, i.e., one that is logically incoherent, makes assertions without proof, and is full of jaundiced "cheap shots" against the book or author. "This happens ALL the time," replied he. To hear his complete answer, view the video on BC's "Front Row" (his answer begins at minute 23:30).

Preface, Bernini: His Life and His Rome as the "first English-language biography of the artist:"

This claim is accurate: if someone finds evidence to the contrary, I would be happy to receive it. Please note Howard Hibbard's Bernini (first published by Penguin Books in 1965 and still in print) is NOT a biography and was never meant to be one: it was written as a discussion of Bernini's career as sculptor. Note what the author himself says in the "Foreword" therein: "In the following pages I have tried to present Bernini's sculpture in an an organic, which is to say chronological order.... My hope was to give some idea of the growth and development of Bernini's artistic vision. In order to do this it was impossible to confine the text to a discussion of sculpture alone, although I was asked to write specifically about that aspect of Bernini's work. There is a vital connexion between Bernini's sculpture and his architecture. I have not approached the buildings as an architectural historian, but rather tried to show how Bernini's architecture arises out of his novel approach to artistic problem." In other words, this is an art historical-critical exposition of Bernini's work, not his life, that is, it is an account of the sculptor and architect, not of the man, even though there is some biographical data sprinkled in here and there.

Bernini: His Life and His Rome, page 25: Bernini's home parish, Sant'Andrea alle Fratte:

The church, "St. Andrews in the Thickets," was inadvertently omitted from my Index. In any case, note that in seventeenth-century documentation the church's name appears both as "alle Fratte" and "delle Fratte," with the former -- it would seem -- more common than the latter until the eighteenth century when it all but disappears giving way to today's single form, "delle Fratte." For the designation, "alle Fratte," see, for example: Rudolfo Grimming, Sedici pellegrinaggi per le 365 chiese di Roma (Rome: Ghezzi, 1665); Filippo Titi, Studio di pittura scoltura et architettura nelle chiese di Roma (Rome: Mancini, 1674) and Giuseppe Vasi, Indice istorico del gran prospetto di Roma (Rome: Pagliarini, 1765).

Bernini as Guest of Marchese Riccardi in Florence (Domenico, 124-25):

As Domenico and Baldinucci both observe, while in Florence, Bernini was guest of Marchese Gabriello Riccardi, chief steward to the granducal court in early May 1665 en route to Paris. In 1659 Riccardi had purchased from the Grand Duke the Palazzo Medici in Via Larga (now Via Cavour), which was being expanded and embellished in the 1660s when Bernini came to town. Bernini presumably slept in this palazzo during his three-day visit. However, in order to view the Riccardi collection of antiquities, he also visited the other (and original) Palazzo Riccardi, which, as Baldinucci observes in his Life of Bernini, was in "Via Gualfonda." Thanks to the kindness of my friend and long-time resident of Florence, Dott.ssa Francesca Avezzano-Comes, I came to learn (during my own recent visit to Florence) that "Via Gualfonda" is today's "Via Valfonda" (alongside the Stazione di Santa Maria Novella) and that Palazzo Riccardi still stands at #9, the headquarters of the Associazione degli Industriali della Provincia di Firenze. Here is a photograph of the building:

Palazzo Riccardi, Via Valfonda 9, Florence
(photo courtesy of F. Avezzano-Comes)

Bernini: His Life and His Rome, page 351: "If you seek his monument, just look around you:"

This final line of my book in the unabridged first draft of my manuscript had the following footnote, which was omitted in the final version due to space considerations:

"This is the epitaph of English architect, Christopher Wren (whom we met briefly in Chapter 5), written by his son. The original is in Latin: 'Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.' It refers to London's St. Paul's Cathedral, a work of Wren's design and his burial place. It has since been applied to many an architect, but to whom is it more applicable than Bernini and 'his' Rome?"

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