The second foundational part of this investigation concerns the multiples. The best documented works are singular casts in situ in St. Peter’s. But even those projects are comprised by many editions of multiples. There were two models made for each of the three drums used for the Baldacchino’s bronze columns – hence six models each cast twice. The coats of arms, tours de force of relief sculpture, on the bases of the Cathedra Petri and Sacrament chapels, are also multiples. As are the 19 Dead Christs and 6 Living Christs Bernini was commissioned to create as part of the sacred appointments for the altars. Even the monumental singular works involved a production of multiples.
We revisited Bernini’s entire catalogue of works and re-counted all the multiple casts: each cluster represents the number of casts made after a single model – including the architectural works comprised of multiple casts of components like capitals and parts of entablatures. Works in grey are documented but lost. A talented then undergraduate, Jennifer Liu, designed this poster to help re-envision Bernini’s oeuvre in terms of production. Following this strictly numerical approach, further questions were generated: were all casts after a given model made at the same time? or in the same foundries? and if within a foundry, were different iterations made by different workers or varied according to a principle of customization? Did every cast go through Bernini or did patrons commission their own casts from circulating models or molds? In other words, Bernini’s extra-workshop relationships with founders, and systems in which bronzes came into being needed to be investigated. In disrupting the hierarchical relationship of designer and foundry worker, we are not introducing a second type of connoisseurship, but are placing the emphasis on the founder’s considerable share in the work.
In summer of 2021 Jennifer Liu, who held a University of Toronto Excellence Award for an undergraduate to work with a faculty mentor on their research project, designed this poster to help re-envision Bernini’s oeuvre in terms of the production of multiples. Only bronzes cast more than once were included and works which are referred to in documents but are lost are counted but appear in grey rather than white. Following this strictly numerical approach, further questions were generated: were all casts after a given model made at the same time? or in the same foundries? and if within a foundry, were different iterations made by different workers or varied according to a principle of customization? Did every cast go through Bernini or did patrons commission their own casts from circulating models or molds? In other words, Bernini’s extra-workshop relationships with founders, the systems in which bronzes came into being needed to be investigated.
In summer of 2022 Elizabeth Provost received a University of Toronto Excellence Award to work with Bernini’s Bronzes. Her project that summer was to compare the production of Bernini’s multiples to his contemporary Alessandro Algardi. Working primarily with Jennifer Montagu’s catalogue raisonné of Alessandro Algardi (updated with more recent sources), Elizabeth’s project was much more complicated than Bernini’s because so many of Algardi’s casts were known to have been made after his death with models distributed to his heirs and many may have been made even later. There is so little information about casting history that the numbers here are approximate. Nonetheless, the comparison of the two posters is revealing of the nature of the two sculptors’ activity in the medium, highlighting the small statuettes of Algardi and the large extent to which Bernini’s bronze multiples were produced for papal projects at St. Peter’s.
