Jake Morrissey

I couldn't finish this. I was hoping it would be as engaging as Brunelleschi's Dome, by Ross King, but it seemed to drag, and I finally decided to abandon it. I thought perhaps Bernini and Borromini were intrinsically less interesting than Brunelleschi (apparently not, according to the other review). There was nothing wrong with the book (other than the nagging sense that the "rivalry" of the title was rather contrived) or the writer's style, which is why I kept it on my tbr pile for nearly two years, but I found I was always picking up something more interesting.… (meer)

This is a delectable appetizer to two masters of the Italian baroque, Francesco Borromini, technically a Swiss whose face graced the previous 100 Swiss Francs note (the current 10 Swiss Francs note pictures another architect appropriated by another country), and Gianlorenzo Bernini.

In order to sell more book, the book is set up as a collision of two minds. The author only partially succeeds as Bernini was primarily a sculptor and Borromini an architect-engineer. Bernini is one of the last artist-architects who designed buildings without a proper education. As the number of his structural mishaps shows the evolution of a distinct profession of architect was a sound practice. Borromini, while trained as a stone mason, was an architect foremost, a specialist of constrained spaces and corrector of botched attempts of other architects. Their collision was often a controversial if fruitful collaboration.

I wish the author had expanded the dirty parts. Bernini had a long affair with the wife of one of his employees. She also was involved with Bernini's brother. The raging betrayed betrayer Bernini nearly killed his brother. Not to be outdone in villainy, the brother later on sodomized a boy in the Vatican. Borromini meanwhile ordered a thiefing youth beaten, which the youth did not survive. Both Bernini and Borromini were absolved for their crimes by a lenient pope.

This book is a good introduction, although one could easily switch to the heavily quoted individual biographies by Anthony Blunt (Borromini, even in the paperback edition not included in the bibliography) and Charles Avery (Bernini, concentrating on sculpture; this lavishly illustrated work is highly recommended).… (meer)