Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence. Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence is an early sculpture by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
It depicts the saint at the moment of his martyrdom, being burnt alive on a gridiron. According to Bernini's biographer, Filippo Baldinucci, the sculpture was completed when Bernini was 15 years old, implying it was finished in the year 1614.
Other historians have dated the sculpture between 1615 and 1618. A date of 1617 seems most likely.
It is less than life-size in dimensions, measuring 108 by 66 cm. The sculpture is now held in the Uffizi in Florence as part of the Contini Bonacossi Collection. There is some confusion over the patronage of the sculpture.
Filippo Baldinucci simply wrote it was done for Leone Strozzi, a Florentine nobleman living in Rome. Bernini's son, Domenico Bernini, who wrote a biography of his father, paints a more complex picture, suggesting that Bernini executed the sculpture out of his devotion for the saint rather than for a specific commission. Michela Uliva suggests this may be true, with Bernini's supporter Cardinal Maffeo Barberni enthusing the artist with the burgeoning post-Tridentine interest in early Christian martyrs. Recent historians tend to agree with Domenico Bernini's statement that Leone Strozzi was impressed by the sculpture and acquired it for his Villa del Viminale. Irving Lavin suggests that Strozzi may have become familiar with the work
It depicts the saint at the moment of his martyrdom, being burnt alive on a gridiron. According to Bernini's biographer, Filippo Baldinucci, the sculpture was completed when Bernini was 15 years old, implying it was finished in the year 1614.
Other historians have dated the sculpture between 1615 and 1618. A date of 1617 seems most likely.
It is less than life-size in dimensions, measuring 108 by 66 cm. The sculpture is now held in the Uffizi in Florence as part of the Contini Bonacossi Collection. There is some confusion over the patronage of the sculpture.
Filippo Baldinucci simply wrote it was done for Leone Strozzi, a Florentine nobleman living in Rome. Bernini's son, Domenico Bernini, who wrote a biography of his father, paints a more complex picture, suggesting that Bernini executed the sculpture out of his devotion for the saint rather than for a specific commission. Michela Uliva suggests this may be true, with Bernini's supporter Cardinal Maffeo Barberni enthusing the artist with the burgeoning post-Tridentine interest in early Christian martyrs. Recent historians tend to agree with Domenico Bernini's statement that Leone Strozzi was impressed by the sculpture and acquired it for his Villa del Viminale. Irving Lavin suggests that Strozzi may have become familiar with the work
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