The challenges of animating a marble bust were magnified in this case by the fact that the sitter, Monsignor Francesco Barberini (1528–1600), had died more than 20 years before Bernini set to work. The monsignor was a learned man, serving in several positions within the church. He became an influential mentor to his nephew, Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII. After Maffeo’s father died when the boy was only three years old, Francesco had taken him under his care and guided his career. Before his election as pope in 1623, Maffeo commissioned Bernini to create several busts to honor family members, including this one of his revered uncle. The intricately carved bee that appears on the socle is the family’s symbol.

Bernini’s portrait busts are among the most brilliant ever made. When Bernini had a living subject before him, he preferred that the sitter talk and even walk around. It helped the artists to animate his sculptures, physically and psychologically. In the case of Francesco Barberini, the fact that his portrait was carved posthumously may explain a certain remoteness that is uncharacteristic in Bernini’s work. Bernini probably based the portrait of Francesco on a painting. Beyond the facial resemblance, details of the monsignor’s dress are identical in both the painting and the sculpture. The breadth of the chest, which is considerably larger than those that Bernini normally carved at this time, suggests the bulk of the seated figure in the painting. Bernini’s genius in carving is revealed in the intricate treatment of the shirt, deeply undercut collar, and pleated vestment with its zigzag patterns.

Bernini’s first important patron was Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who commissioned the artist, still in his early 20s, for four large sculptural groups. Their dazzling technique (achieved in part by gifted assistants) and innovative narrative approach established the artist’s international reputation. In Maffeo Barberini, who became Pope Urban VIII 1623, Bernini found an engaged patron, with funds to match his ambition. Urban shared Bernini’s literary and intellectual ambitions as well as his artistic ones, and his patronage would sustain the artist until the pope’s death in 1644.

Then Urban’s successor, Innocent X, was lured unwittingly into seeing Bernini’s design for the Four Rivers fountain in the Piazza Navona, and he could not resist it. The sculptor returned to favor, although he never again enjoyed the level of papal support he had known previously. In 1665 Louis XIV invited Bernini to France. The description of his time there, recorded by Paul Fréart de Chantelou (1609–1695), is one of the most significant documents pertaining to his career. Despite the high expectations for his success in a foreign country, Bernini’s dynamic, individualistic style clashed with Louis’ formalized French academic system. Although Bernini’s plans for the Louvre were rejected, he created a magnificent marble portrait of the king. Back in Rome, Bernini continued working until his death in 1680.