BERNINI PALACES

PALAZZI BERNINI

Via della Mercede 11 e 12a

PALACE at No. 11

Maybe by Gaspare De Vecchi (active 1628/1643) and Pier Paolo Drei

Home of the great Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680) where he lived most of his life and where he died

Formerly known as Palazzo Naro (Naro Palace) and bought in 1641 by Pietro Bernini, Gian Lorenzo's father

PALACE AT No. 12

Bernini's studio with “Plaque and bust of Bernini” 1892 by Ettore Ferrari (1845/1929) which should have really been placed at No. 11

MONUMENT TO GIUSEPPE MAZZINI

MONUMENTO A GIUSEPPE MAZZINI

Piazzale Ugo La Malfa

1929 last work by Ettore Ferrari (1845/1929) who was Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy, the Italian Freemasonry

Placed here only in 1949 for the centenary of the Roman Republic, after some allegorical high reliefs irreverent towards the Holy See were removed from the base, like a prancing horse trampling over emblems of the church

In the BASE there are high reliefs representing the ideas of Mazzini: the desire for freedom that is realized in the Giovane Italia (Young Italy Association), the sacrifice for the redemption of the oppressed from tyranny, the fight against tyranny, the triumph of the revolution, the burial of the remains of the martyrs

MONUMENT TO GIORDANO BRUNO

MONUMENTO A GIORDANO BRUNO

Piazza Campo de' Fiori

1887 Ettore Ferrari (1845/1929)

Bronze statue and pedestal of granite from Baveno

Dedicated in 1889 in the very same place where Giordano Bruno (1548/1600) was burned as a heretic on February 17, 1600

In the base EIGHT MEDALLIONS with faces of heretical thinkers and THREE PANELS with scenes from the life of Giordano Bruno: "The lesson at Oxford", "The Trial" and "The burning at the stake"

"Ferrari was committed to offer his work for free, creating a first draft that showed Bruno with his arm raised in the act of preaching and persuading to revolt. Rejected by the City Council, Ferrari had to change the statue, removing any reference to his revolutionary preaching and so conceiving the severe figure of the 'Philosopher Bruno'" (Alessandra Imbellone)

ANTONIO CANOVA'S HOUSE-STUDIO

CASA-STUDIO DI ANTONIO CANOVA

Via delle Colonnette 27

1803/06 Antonio Canova (1757/1822), the great sculptor and giant of Neoclassicism who created in this building many of his masterpieces

He bought some houses from the Augustinians of S. Maria del Popolo and united and adapted them as his home

The house was equipped with a huge studio that is now a clinic, the last remnant of the St. James Hospital closed in 2008

In 1912 it was the headquarters of the Unione degli Artisti (Union of Artists) that there had affixed a plaque in 1917 designed by Cesare Bazzani (1873/1939) and executed by Ettore Ferrari (1845/1929)

The "Bust of Canova" is by Giuseppe Guastalla (1867/1952) who copied the portrait of Canova kept in the Academy of St. Luke

The date on the plaque is 2670 but it is neither an error nor a mysterious Maya prediction: it is simply the date 1917 calculated from the founding of Rome in 753 BC, a touch of anticlericalism that would have been unthinkable only a few years later with the reconciliation between state and church of 1929

Now the house is managed by a cultural association that organizes meetings and exhibitions