The stupendous “Bernini and the Barberinis” exhibit at Rome’s Palazzo Barberini, February 11th, 2026.

After the truly magnificent Caravaggio exhibit last year Rome’s central Palazzo Barberini is hosting yet another stupendous art exhibit, “Bernini and the Barberinis”. 

 
Palazzo Barberini’s director Thomas Clement Salomon led the conference which outlined some of the ninety works of art that are on display by the “father” of the Italian Baroque period, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (born in Naples. He was the son of artist Pietro Bernini).  Bernini’s exquisite collection arrives from  prestigious museums such as the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Louvre, Florence’s Uffizi Museum, London’s National Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornnemisza Museum.

 

Gian Lorenzo was born in 1598 and died in 1680.  He was a sculptor, painter, architect, a city planning expert as well as a costume designer.  Among some of his greatest works is the large canopy that lies over the altar inside St. Peter’s Basilica as well as the colonnade around the famous square (which, coincidentally, St. Peter’s  celebrates this year the 400th anniversary of the modern-day version of its Basilica).

 
Bernini was the darling of Maffeo Barberini who would go on to become Pope Urban VIII in 1623.  So much was Pope Urban’s admiration for the artist (it was in fact Maffeo who had discovered Bernini) that from an architectural point of view the construction of Palazzo Barberini was handed over to Bernini himself (Carlo Maderno was initially put in charge of the project but upon his death in 1629 Bernini took over).

 
The exhibit (which is sub-divided into six sections) runs until June 14^th, 2026.