Visible Spirit The Art of Gianlorenzo Bernini Vol. I Irving Lavin

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BERNINI AND THE CROSSING OF SAINT PETER’S 81
in many contemporary illustrations, consisted of a tasselled canopy supported
on staves held by four standing angels (Figs. 2–4, 19–23); 21 it
reproduced, in effect, a portable canopy such as was borne above bishops
(hence the pope) on formal occasions, and above the Holy Sacrament and
the relics of the Passion when they were carried in procession. 22 This was the
basic theme that would be retained in the two subsequent baldachins built
over the tomb, including Bernini’s. The scale of the baldachin was impressive;
its height has been calculated at roughly nine meters, only a meter
short of Bernini’s bronze columns. 23 Moreover it was to be executed in
bronze, 24 a significant innovation, since monumental altar coverings were
usually of stone. The project thus foreshadows the material of Bernini’s baldachin,
as well as the underlying notion of translating a normally
‘ephemeral’ type into permanent and monumental terms.
The purpose of this revolutionary design must have been largely symbolic.
With the removal of the high altar the tomb itself became a kind of
reliquary, for which such a canopy would be appropriate. At the same time,
by alluding to the processional canopy traditionally associated with the
bishop, the new design may have been intended to mark the special character
of the site as the tomb of the first pope. Whatever its meaning, the
baldachin offered a vivid and surely deliberate contrast to the proper ciborium
that was at the same time erected over the new papal altar.
It should be noted, finally, that the depictions of the baldachin during
the canonization of Carlo Borromeo in 1610 are of interest in showing the
decorations it received for the occasion (Figs. 2, 3, 20). 25 Strands of lilies are
wound spirally about the supports, and above the canopy proper is a medal-
21 Appendix I Nos. 4–12, Payments for the angels were made to the sculptors Ambrogio
Buonvicino and Camillo Mariani; the angels’ drapery was made of real cloth (cf. Orbaan, 47
f.).
22 J. Braun, Die liturgischen Paramente in Gegenwart und Vergangenheit, Freiburg-im-
Breisgau, 1924, 240; Moroni, Dizionario, VI, 57 ff.
23 Cf. Siebenhüner, ‘Umrisse’, 309. The height of the bronze columns is given as 45
palmi by G. P. Chattard, Nuova descrizione del Vaticano . . . Rome, 1762–67, 1, 148 f. (The
Roman palmo was slightly over .22 m.)
24 Tota haec machina ex ligno compacta, subjecto Iconismo expressa ideam exhibebat future
molis, quam ex aere, auroque excitare animo inerat Pontificis . . . Nihil tamen Paulo regnante
effectum est, sed postquam Urbanus VIII Pontificiae Dignitatis . . . (Buonanni, Numismata templi
vaticani, 127, and Numismata pontificum romanorum, II, 573)
25 Appendix I, nos. 5–8.