Among the most beautiful things to see in the historic centre of Rome, you’ve surely noticed that there are a great many works by Bernini and Borromini, two great geniuses of the Baroque.
You’ll have come across some of their masterpieces in Piazza Navona and on the Quirinal, but the finest works by Bernini and Borromini are scattered pretty much everywhere in Rome. The Galleria Borghese, Piazza Barberini, Palazzo Barberini, Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza and even Saint Peter’s are just some of the most famous places where you can find the fruit of their labour.
These two great personalities of the 1600s left an indelible mark on the Eternal City, but what lies hidden behind their works?
Bernini and Borromini were not just great architects and sculptors but true geniuses of their age.
They worked together at Saint Peter’s and often found themselves finishing each other’s projects, as in the case of Palazzo Barberini. What’s almost never told is that they had opposite ways of conceiving art, characters at the antipodes and a fierce rivalry between them.
Great artists, as we know, are often exalted and idealised. Yet one of the most entertaining things is discovering the men behind the genius and realising that artists were human beings just like us. And, at times, they got up to real mischief.
I’ve already told you about Raphael’s provocations towards Michelangelo, and about the anecdotes of the Sistine Chapel. Well, if those stories intrigued you and made you smile, get ready to discover one of the moments of maximum tension in seventeenth-century Roman art.
Want to know more?
Let’s go!
1 – The personalities of Bernini and Borromini
Bernini and Borromini were two absolute masters of the 1600s, but they had completely different personalities and styles.
Bernini, born in Naples in 1598, lived from his earliest youth in a privileged environment. His father Pietro was an important sculptor with strong influence and many connections in Rome. And that’s not all! Sensing his son’s talent, he did everything he could to present him as a genius while still a boy.
Being born into the trade, together with his undeniable talent and a particularly charismatic, worldly character, helped Bernini win the most important commissions on Rome’s building sites, especially under Pope Urban VIII.
To get an idea of his influence at the papal court, just think that it was he who took charge of the monumental colonnade of Saint Peter’s and of countless works and fountains all over Rome.
And Borromini?
Well, if Bernini was charismatic, Borromini had a reserved, brooding character with little taste for social life. Born in Bissone, on Lake Lugano, in 1599, he trained in Milan as a stonemason and arrived in Rome only at the age of 20.
He worked from the start at the great worksite of Saint Peter’s, thanks to a family tie with Carlo Maderno, and then continued under Bernini’s own direction.
Their relationship, however, was not destined to remain harmonious.
In 1634 the two architects parted ways for good, both because of growing friction and because Borromini was offered the chance to design the church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, which I’ll tell you about shortly.
But there’s more.
2 – Their styles
From the artistic point of view too, Bernini and Borromini were completely different.
Borromini was above all an architect, and he went down in history for his original spatial solutions. If you’ve ever looked at one of his churches, you’ll have noticed that the façades are built on precise geometries, repeated in alternating patterns. Thanks to these devices, Borromini often experimented with solutions that were strikingly innovative for his time, in clear contrast with Bernini’s art.
Bernini, in fact, took a much more solemn, “religious” approach, with well-defined, more classical proportions.
For this reason, and for his close ties with the pope, Bernini’s career took off at a very young age, when he carved the sculptures for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, still today at the Galleria Borghese. Almost all the popes who succeeded one another during his career favoured him; Urban VIII in particular did for him exactly what Julius II had done for Michelangelo Buonarroti, rewarding him in nearly every competition in the capital.
It’s no surprise, then, that Borromini nursed a deep resentment towards his rival, receiving only commissions of “secondary” value. At least until the death of Urban VIII.
Here’s what happened next!
3 – The legend of Piazza Navona
In 1644 fortune finally seemed to be turning Borromini’s way. With the pope’s death and the election of Innocent X, Bernini was pushed away from the papal court and replaced by Borromini. He had in fact failed in the construction of the two bell towers planned for Saint Peter’s (the cracked south tower was demolished in 1646), one of the most ambitious projects of his career, and many had spread malicious rumours about him.
Bernini certainly didn’t give up, nor did he step aside.
Thanks to his charisma he won the favour of the pope’s sister-in-law, Donna Olimpia, who helped him secure a highly prestigious job. You’ll certainly know this work, because it’s the marvellous Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona (1648-1651), so prestigious that it relaunched his career.
It took a few more years for Borromini to get a small revenge.
In 1652 work began on the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone, right in front of the monumental Fountain of the Four Rivers, to a design by Girolamo and Carlo Rainaldi; the following year Innocent X took the commission away from them and gave it to Borromini, who redesigned its concave façade. He did his utmost, deploying all his talent to outshine his colleague, and this is exactly where the legend begins.
One of the most famous stories about Piazza Navona says that Bernini carved the fountain so that the statue representing the Río de la Plata would look terrified of Borromini’s church of Sant’Agnese in Agone.
In what sense?
If you’ve ever looked closely at this masterpiece, you’ll have noticed that Bernini’s statue holds its hands out, as if afraid the church might collapse at any moment. For the same reason, the statue of the Nile supposedly has its head veiled, precisely so as not to see the horror of the façade.
But is it really so?
In reality, this story handed down in Rome and in guidebooks is only a legend: work on the church began in 1652 (and Borromini took over only in 1653, abandoning the site in 1657), while the fountain had been commissioned in 1648 and unveiled in 1651.
Bernini therefore couldn’t have known that his colleague and rival would take on the church, and it’s impossible that the statues of the Fountain of the Four Rivers were a provocation against Borromini.
Then why does the Nile have its face covered?
The answer is much simpler: it was a way of representing the fact that, at the time, the river’s sources were still unknown.
But if this is only a Roman legend, here are some true stories that will give you a clearer picture of their relationship in the Rome of the day.
4 – Borromini’s San Carlino
On the Quirinal in Rome stand two very clear examples of the differences in style between Bernini and Borromini.
It’s 1634 when Borromini receives his first great independent commission: San Carlino which, born as San Carlo, took its diminutive name precisely because of its tiny size. Just think that the whole church is as big as one of the piers supporting the dome of Saint Peter’s in the Vatican.
Surprising, isn’t it?
The patrons of the work were the Spanish Discalced Trinitarians, a poor order, and Borromini accepted the job not so much for the pay as out of his deep religious faith.
But that’s not all!
Precisely to save on construction, the materials used are not among the most precious either, and Borromini made do with travertine, bricks and stucco.
The result?
Well, the artist’s genius worked a miracle!
Despite the small size and the modest materials, Borromini managed to give the façade an undulating form which, through a play of light and shadow, makes it look far larger than it really is.
The interior is marvellous too.
The choice of white widens the space and increases the church’s luminosity, besides representing the purity and simplicity of the sacred place. Nothing could suit a mendicant order preaching poverty better. The simple stucco decorations, however, like the crosses on the oval dome, are designed in decreasing sizes precisely to make it look bigger and taller.
Borromini managed to exploit the “disadvantaged” situation of this little church perfectly, moulding the spaces with the materials he had at hand.
And Sant’Andrea?
Let me tell you about it!
5 – Bernini’s Sant’Andrea al Quirinale
Just 100 metres away, towards the Quirinal Palace, stands Bernini’s church, built in a completely different way. The artist had much more space at his disposal, and the differences are evident right from the entrance.
In front there’s a small open space, and the rounded form is marked by a classical, solemn style already from the outside.
When you step inside you’ll find a very different environment from San Carlino. Here there are many precious materials, including beautiful marbles, gold and bronze. The space is certainly much wider, but Bernini’s genius shows above all in certain details.
The first concerns the statue of Saint Andrew which, despite its size, seems to fly towards the centre of the dome with absolute lightness.
The second is impossible to notice except through its effects. Bernini managed to create a hidden window from which light pours in, seeming to come straight from heaven. The gilded bronze rays create such a theatrical play of light that the saint really seems to be ascending to the sky.
But why such a difference between the two churches?
Setting aside the undeniable talent of both, while Borromini had to cope with the friars’ tight finances, Sant’Andrea al Quirinale (1658-1670) had been commissioned and financed by Cardinal Camillo Pamphilj with the approval of Pope Alexander VII. And just think: in his old age Bernini considered it his most successful work, and would return there to pray.
It’s not hard to imagine that the budgets available were completely different.
6 – Obscene sculptures in Rome
Another very “amusing” story, handed down by Roman tradition, concerns the palace of Propaganda Fide.
Borromini managed to “steal” the commission for the palace from his rival, who lived right in front of the worksite. To mock him in his defeat, he carved two big donkey’s ears on the still-unfinished façade.
Bernini certainly didn’t just stand and watch. In prompt reply, he had a gigantic… phallus carved on his own cornice!
These two sculptures were later removed for reasons of decency, but the legendary rivalry of these two geniuses still echoes through the streets of Rome.
7 – The tragic epilogue of the rivalry
The two lives, so different, also had two opposite endings.
Borromini, increasingly isolated and tormented, sank into a deep depression. In the summer of 1667, after burning many of his drawings, he took his own life by falling on his own sword. He didn’t die at once: he survived a whole day, lucid, long enough to dictate a will and describe his own act with precision.
By his own wish he was buried without a name, in the tomb of his master Carlo Maderno in San Giovanni dei Fiorentini: his name appeared beside his relative’s only in 1955, on a plaque placed by Switzerland, his native land.
Bernini, on the other hand, outlived him by thirteen years, covered in glory and commissions to the very end, and died in 1680 as the most celebrated artist in Europe. History, though, has done justice to both: today Borromini is considered one of the most brilliant architects of all time.
Where to see the works of Bernini and Borromini in Rome
The wonderful thing about this rivalry is that you can retrace it on foot and almost entirely for free: the Fountain of the Four Rivers and Sant’Agnese in Piazza Navona, San Carlino and Sant’Andrea al Quirinale a few metres apart, the colonnade of Saint Peter’s, the Triton Fountain in Piazza Barberini. Only Bernini’s youthful sculptures require a ticket, for the Galleria Borghese.
And if you want to go beneath the surface, under Piazza Navona hides the Stadium of Domitian, which explains its elongated shape: you can visit it with a guided tour of the Piazza Navona and Trevi Fountain undergrounds, where the guide usually also tells the anecdotes about the rivalry I’ve just revealed to you.
And you, whose side are you on: Bernini or Borromini?
