He sets Bernini’s raucous life against a vivid backdrop of Baroque Rome, bustling and wealthy, and peopled by churchmen and bureaucrats, popes and politicians, schemes and secrets. Drawing on archival sources, letters, diaries, and-with a suitable skepticism-a hagiographic account written by Bernini’s son (who portrays his father as a paragon of virtue and piety), Mormando leads us through Bernini’s many feuds and love affairs, scandals and sins. As Franco Mormando’s dazzling biography reveals, Bernini was a man driven by many passions, possessed of an explosive temper and a hearty sex drive, and he lived a life as dramatic as any of his creations. It is perhaps not surprising that this artist who defined the Baroque should have a personal life that itself was, well, baroque. And his artistic vision remains palpably present today, through the countless statues, fountains, and buildings that transformed Rome into the Baroque theater that continues to enthrall tourists today. Sculptor, architect, painter, playwright, and scenographer, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) was the last of the great universal artistic geniuses of early modern Italy, placed by both contemporaries and posterity in the same exalted company as Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. Franco’s presentation will be based on his recent book, Bernini: His Life and His Rome (the first English-language biography of the artist) and will be held at the Tiffany-decorated Ayer Mansion in Boston’s Back Bay. Bernini was the last of the great universal artistic geniuses of early modern Italy. Franco Mormando, Professor of Italian and Chair of the Romance Languages Department at Boston College, has graciously offered to give us a lecture on the life and work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), sculptor, architect, painter, and playwright.

Franco mormando