Bernini's Souls. Art in Rome for the Spanish Court

Bernini's depictions of the soul and its emotions appeared in the artist's series of busts and portraits, including those of historical and religious figures, mythological beings and self-portraits. At the age of just twenty-one he created what was possibly his first ever commission for a Spanish prelate in Rome, Pedro de Foix Montoya, whose memorable portrait he also produced shortly afterwards.

Amongst the artist's sculptures of the soul, the Anima beata ("Blessed Soul") lights up with its contemplation of the beauty of glory, whilst the Anima dannata ("Damned Soul"), expresses all the terror of hell, as if this emotion had been experienced by the artist himself. A hidden self-portrait of Bernini himself has been identified in this work. This is a procedure that he would subsequently use again, above all in his sculpture of David, for whose face, both sculpted and painted, Bernini was famously said to have asked his friend, Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII, to hold a mirror up to the artist's angry face so that he could create a dramatic depiction of the biblical character.

Bernini's portraits always seem to be almost alive, as witnessed in his Portrait of Scipione Borghese (1577-1633), which has traditionally been praised for the realism of the face, one that almost seems to talk to you when you look at it.

Bernini's later years were especially important in terms of both his own career as an artist and his links with Spain and Spain's ambassadors in Rome. Thus, during the papacies that ran from Clement IX (Rospigliosi) to Innocent XI (Odescalchi), as of 1665, when the artist had just returned from his unsuccessful trip to Paris, Bernini suffered a series of setbacks. On the one hand, he ceased to be the indisputable leader of the transformations that were taking place in Baroque Rome, which accentuated both his religious outlook and his concerns about his own critical fame and fortune.

On the other, this was a period of unfinished and cancelled projects for Clement IX, of works that suffered criticisms that verged on satire and libel, as occurred with his Constantine at the Vatican's Scala Regia and the unfortunate circumstances surrounding his Equestrian Sculpture for Louis XIV, whose formal execution and iconography were misunderstood in Paris. However, this was also a period in which the artist seemed to establish a different relationship with the Spanish Monarchy and, in particular, with Charles II, thanks to Bernini's friendly ties with Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán, Seventh Marquis of Carpio, the Spanish Ambassador in Rome between 1676 and 1682. A well-known collector throughout the whole of Europe, amongst other works Haro commissioned an almost life-sized replica of the Fountain of the Four Rivers located in the Piazza Navona.