Leseprobe

121 Permoser must have encountered Bernini’s genius as soon as he arrived in the Eternal City, since – like all those arriving from the north – he would certainly have entered Rome through the Porta del Popolo. The city gate had been renovated by Bernini for the reception of Queen Christina of Sweden, and he had also designed the adjacent Piazza del Popolo, with its twin churches of Santa Maria in Montesanto and Santa Maria dei Miracoli. 6 It is likely that Permoser then followed the path that pilgrims usually took and went along the Via di Ripetta to the Ponte Sant’Angelo in order to cross the River Tiber and make his way directly to Saint Peter’s Basilica. The Ponte Sant’Angelo, the old pons aelius , takes its name from the Castel Sant’Angelo (the ancient mausoleum of Hadrian) and had been recently adorned with a multitude of larg- er-than-life statues of angels holding the Instruments of the Passion sculpted by Bernini and his workshop in the years after 1667. 7 One can only imagine what Permoser – the farmer’s son from southern Germany who had previously only seen Salzburg and Vienna – must have felt as he crossed over this bridge, passed along the Borgo Nuovo (that was still narrow and cramped in those days), before finally reaching the colonnades on Saint Peter’s Square. It is not very likely that he ever met the old Bernini, then still alive and completing his final works such as the Saint Ludovica Albertoni for the church of San Francesco a Ripa. Nevertheless, Permoser studied his works so closely that they would remain forever in his memory. Little is known about Permoser’s Roman period; he obviously spent time studying the works of antiquity but was also artistically active, as shown by the – still somewhat rough – stucco Fig. 93 Balthasar Permoser, Marsyas , c. 1680 – 1685, marble, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Fig. 94 Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Anima Dannata , c. 1619, marble, Palazzo di Spagna, Rome

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTMyNjA1