
Bernini, St. Peter's, The Baldacchino 1624-1633
 | Form: According to the Brittanica, Bernini's,
famous immense gilt-bronze baldachin executed between 1624 and 1633. Its twisted columns derive from the early Christian columns that had been used in the altar screen of Old St. Peter's. Bernini's most original contribution to the final work is the upper framework of crowning volutes flanked by four angels that supports the orb and cross. The baldachin is perfectly proportioned to its setting, and one hardly realizes that it is as tall as a four-story building. Its lively outline moving upward to the triumphant crown, its dark colour heightened with burning gold, give it the character of a living organism. An unprecedented fusion of sculpture and architecture, the baldachin is the first truly Baroque monument. It ultimately formed the centre of a programmatic decoration designed by Bernini for the interior of St. Peter's.
The ornamentation and use of different materials is an excellent example of the Baroque style. The overall form is of a tent like canopy that is cast in bronze. The materials, bronze gilded with gold trim, is a striking and almost gaudy use of materials. The columns are classical but literally with a "twist." Atop the structure are banners adorned with the "Barbarini bees" (the Pope's family's coat of arms.) Above that is a kind of diorama like scene of winged victory figures and cherubs that carry the papal crown as if they are about to descend and crown Peter. Iconography: The size and use of precious materials is a conspicuous consumption of materials which heightens its value. In fact, tour guides tell the story that Bernini ran out of bronze for its construction and the pope authorized him to remove and melt down the doors of the Pantheon for bronze. The tour guides say, "Whatever the barbarians didn't destroy, the Barbarini did."
The structure was built over the crossing of the nave and transept, under the central dome and above the mortal remains of St. Peter, the first Pope. The form of the tent probably is symbolic of the relationship of the first Jewish temple, which was in a tent, and the first Christian basilica St. Peter's.
(The baldachin) also spelled Baldachino, or Baldaquin, also called Ciborium, in architecture, is the canopy over an altar or tomb, supported on columns, especially when freestanding and disconnected from any enclosing wall. The term originates from the Spanish baldaquin, an elaborately brocaded material imported from Baghdad that was hung as a canopy over an altar or doorway. Later it came to stand for a freestanding canopy over an altar.
This probably also accounts for the cherub who floats above symbolically waiting to crown St. Peter below.
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