Vatican Museums

“Among the hundreds of bibliographic titles dedicated to Giovan Lorenzo Bernini, Benedetta Ciuffa has succeeded in her aim: to produce the study that did not exist”, affirms the Director of the Vatican Museums, Barbara Jatta, in her Introduction to the book that she will present on Monday 8 April at the Vatican Museums, alongside Maria Barbara Guerrieri Borsoi and Tomaso Montanari.

With “Bernini tradotto. La fortuna attraverso le stampe del tempo (1620-1720)” (Artemide 2018), the author Benedetta Ciuffa intends to fill a notable gap in the field of studies on Bernini and to offer an unprecedented contribution to the critical definition of this dominant figure of the Roman Baroque. Much has been written on Gian Lorenzo Bernini, but the fame of this artist was contributed to not only by the pens of his supporters and detractors, but also by the circulation of contemporary prints, which provide in a sense “snapshots of the past” able to reach “the farthest nations”: Italian and foreign engravers took on the works of the master, giving rise to a great number of reproductions that the Roman chalcography workshops, often in competition with one another, produced at a frenetic pace to satisfy the demand of a vast public.

The graphic fortunes of Bernini’s works is documented by the extensive catalogue, which includes over five hundred engravings: a sort of “Berninian Gallery”, limited to the years in which the artist was alive and to the subsequent decades.