Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect, born in Naples and active in Rome for almost his whole career. He became architect of St. Peter's Basilica in 1629, after the death of Carlo Maderno. He also wrote, directed and acted in plays, mostly Carnival comedies, and designed stage sets.

Inside St. Peter's he designed the Baldacchino (1623-1634), a bronze canopy nearly 30 meters high on four twisted columns over the high altar, and the Cathedra Petri (1656-1666), a gilded bronze monument in the apse. From 1656 he laid out St. Peter's Square for Pope Alexander VII as an oval enclosed by two curved colonnades, each four columns deep, with 140 statues of saints along the top. The open oval let large crowds see the pope give his blessing. The Scala Regia (1663-1666), a ceremonial stair in the Vatican palace, has columns that shrink and draw closer together as it rises, so that it appears longer than it is.

His small oval church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale (1658-1670) was built for the Jesuits' training house. In the Cornaro Chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria he combined colored marble, a hidden window and his sculpture of the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. In 1665 he traveled to Paris to design the east front of the Louvre for Louis XIV, and his designs were rejected in 1667.