Gian Lorenzo Bernini - Early Life

Early Life

Bernini was born in Naples to a Mannerist sculptor, Pietro Bernini, originally from Florence, and Angelica Galante, a Neapolitan, the sixth of their thirteen children. Bernini himself would not marry until May 1639, at age forty-one, when he wed a twenty-two year old Roman girl, Caterina Tezio, an arranged marriage that bore him eleven children. In 1606, at the age of eight he accompanied his father to Rome, where Pietro was involved in several high profile projects. There, as a boy, Gianlorenzo's skill was soon noticed by the painter Annibale Carracci and by Pope Paul V, and he soon gained the important patronage of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the papal nephew. His first works were inspired by antique Hellenistic sculpture.