The Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) almost singlehandedly created high baroque sculpture. His work in architecture, although more conservative, ranks him among the three or four major architects of the 17th century.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini was born in Naples on Dec. 7, 1598. His mother was Neapolitan. He was trained as a sculptor by his father, Pietro, who came from Florence. But Bernini was Roman: he was brought to Rome as a child; he remained there almost all his life; and he absorbed completely Rome's dual heritage of empire and papacy.

Not long after Pietro Bernini moved from Naples to Rome, he began work on the sculpture of the Pauline Chapel, the enormous addition to S. Maria Maggiore built for the reigning pope, Paul V. This commission gave the elder Bernini an opportunity to introduce his son, who was a child prodigy, to the Pope and the Pope's favorite...