by Brooke Wolfe

Created on: April 10, 2009

In the 1660s, Gianlorenzo Bernini was at the height of his career as a sculptor and architect in Rome. Throughout the pontificate of the Chigi Pope Alexander VII (1655-1667), Bernini was consumed with architectural and sculptural commissions in the Eternal City, including the continued decorative programs for St. Peter's and the construction of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale. It was during this fortuitous time that Bernini embarked on his journey to the French court in Paris to execute a series of royal commissions for the Bourbon King Louis XIV.

Bernini's sojourn in France, which lasted only around six months, was one of the most disappointing and frustrating monarchical commissions in history. The artist was summoned to Paris in 1665 by King Louis XIV and his advisor, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, with the primary purpose of designing and overseeing the construction of the Louvre. The details of the commission have been well recorded. In the early 1650s, Louis XIV and Colbert had initially commissioned the completion of the Louvre, the intended central palace for the King in Paris, from local French architects, including Lemercier, Louis Le Vau, and Francois Mansart. All three architects either died during completion (the fate of Lemercier), or were deemed unsatisfactory by Colbert, who did not like Le Vau's designs and who grew impatient with the waffling of Mansart on his project. Therefore, Colbert and the King decided to open up the continuation of the Louvre, which by 1662 was only partially completed, to French and eventually Roman architects. Bernini, in the end, was selected by the French crown to fulfill the commission, and after much wrangling with Pope Alexander VII, who was hesitant to lose his favorite artist while amidst important papal commissions, managed to persuade the artist to make the journey north.
Bernini arrived in Paris in June of 1665, and was permitted to stay only three months to design and initiate construction of the Louvre. This tenure would be extended to six months, and the royal commission would grow from one architectural project to several simultaneous royal commissions, including a baldacchino for the high altar at Val-de-Grace, a mausoleum at Saint-Denis, a theater between the Louvre and the Tuileries, a royal chapel for the Louvre, and a portrait bust of the King. Bernini would also be coerced into lecturing at the French Academy and aiding Colbert in the structural organization and training of burgeoning artists. He was also frequently

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