Giovan Lorenzo Bernini and his models
Giovan Lorenzo Bernini and his models

Giovan Lorenzo Bernini and his models

16 November 2016 – 26 February 2017
Pinacoteca, Room XII, Vatican Museums

Exactly six years after the beginning of works, the restoration of “some of the most beautiful angels of Roman Baroque” comes to an end: eight models in raw earth, planned and modelled between 1661 and 1674 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini himself for the bronze figures of the Angels and the Saints of the Altar of the Cathedra and of the Most Holy Sacrament in St. Peter’s.

After being the protagonists of a conservation intervention, innovative in terms of the techniques and materials used, the works leave their “transparent workshop” – the first visible to the public in the history of the Vatican Museums – to return to their original location, the Vatican Pinacoteca. First, however, they will be on extraordinary display from 16 November in Room XII, for the exhibition Giovan Lorenzo Bernini and his models.

The visitors will be guided in the discovery of these masterpieces – displayed along with another seven models in terracotta, for different works by the same artist – by detailed display panels on Bernini’s creative project and on the phases of the restoration masterfully executed by F. Callori, A. Baltera and F. Cuozzo under the supervision of Antonio Paolucci and the scientific direction of Arnold Nesselrath.

The models on display, of the angels and the heads of the Fathers of the Church, are the property of the Fabric of St. Peter and have been conserved in the Vatican Museums since 1980.