Bernini’s Beloved: The Portrait of Costanza Piccolomini

This splendidly illustrated and erudite study tells the life story of Costanza Piccolomini (d. 1560), the wife of baroque sculptor Matteo Bonarelli, mistress of Gianlorenzo Bernini, and the subject of one of Bernini’s most well-known and lifelike sculpture of a private subject. While the details of Bernini’s relationship with Piccolomini are uncertain, he created his famous bust “while passionately in love with her,” an affair which culminated in shocking violence against both Piccolomini and Bernini’s own brother. Art historian McPhee (Bernini and the Bell Towers) describes Piccolomini’s extraordinary life and character: a highly determined woman who learned to read and write; survived sexual assault, detention, and arrest; and successfully ran her husband’s sculpture studio after being widowed at the age of 40. McPhee beautifully interweaves personal history, art history, and the cultural history of baroque Rome to spotlight Piccolomini’s biography and to demonstrate why the power of her image and her story is worth investigating. A highly impressive work of scholarship and a tour de force of interest to art historians, scholars of the baroque with a particular interest in women’s history, and accessible to general readers, the book also includes extensive appendixes of primary sources in Italian and new archival research. Color and b&w illus. Agent: Michael Carlisle, Inkwell Management. (June)