Overview

Powers Matchless is the first book-length study on the Baldachin inside St. Peters, Rome (1624-1633). It situates the monument in the center of Urban VIII's grand plan for his Pontificate (1623-1644) and critically evaluates the structure's design, complicated construction, and meaning in the context of the Pontiff's rearmament of Rome and the Vatican. This study also provides a new interpretation of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's beginnings and early development as an architect and impresario.

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9780820428222

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Chandler Kirwin's magistral study of Bernini's great bronze masterpiece, the Baldachin in St. Peter's, will no doubt raise hackles among the deconstructionist, pragmatist, and probably the feminist art historians. In a passionate narration buttressed with documents, Kirwin considers the place of the Baldachin in the evolving career of its author, but his special concerns are the religious and political implications of its physical place: its centered location at the crossing of the capitol church of Catholic Christendom. Kirwin argues that it was no accident that a precious war material - bronze - was recklessly invested in this project and that under Bernini's supervision the papal cannon founders carried out the casting contemporaneously with the renewal of the military defenses of Rome and the Papal States. Kirwin asserts, Urban girded simultaneously for spiritual and secular war against the gathering enemies of the Holy See. Papal military adventures proved disastrous; the Baldachin, an enduring masterpiece. (Malcolm Campbell, Class of 1965 Professor, Department of Art History, University of Pennsylvania)

Author Information

The Author: W. Chandler Kirwin is a Professor of Art History at the University of Guelph, Ontario. He was the Samuel H. Kress Fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome, and received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. He has edited a book on Italian Renaissance architecture, has published numerous articles on Italian art from Leonardo da Vinci to Bernini, and has co-authored an exhibition at the Uffizi Museum, Florence. Dr. Kirwin has been the recipient of several awards.

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