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Our objective is the technical study of Bernini’s complete corpus of works in bronze alongside a comprehensive study of the art theoretical, historical, and archival record of his bronze production. The multidisciplinary research team formed for The Technical Study of Bernini’s Bronzes brings together an art historian, sculpture conservators, material scientists, computer scientists, and a museum curator. The moment for this study is propitious. With the increasing accuracy and portability of imaging and analytical instruments, we can unlock the secrets of the manufacture of Bernini’s bronzes. This is also a digital humanities project: computational analysis will allow the abundant and diverse data types generated by the project to speak to one another, helping us to find links amongst works that would not otherwise emerge. This ambitious collaborative investigation of an understudied part of Bernini’s oeuvre is the first to examine the bronzes comprehensively as a medium and, using technical means, to answer fundamental questions about their making, breaking through an impasse in current scholarship and introducing a methodology for such collaborative technical art history studies.

About Bernini's Bronzes

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