The Baptism of Christ

On his return to Rome, Mochi executed one of the four great sculptures for the piers supporting Michelangelo's dome, the St. Veronica, arousing the discontent of the academics: “He represented her in the act of moving, and with a violent movement...”; by that date, however, he was in good company, since Bernini had already carved all the fables for Cardinal Borghese and was working along lines in some respects similar to Mochi's. Some years later (1634) Mochi himself seemed to undertake a revision of the terms of his own style, which, while on the one hand it stripped the sculpture of all pictorial incidentals, on the other accentuated the dynamism and the dramatic shadows. These statues were carved for San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, but were never placed there, and ended up on the abutments of Ponte Milvio, from which they were removed only recently.