Funerary Monument of Urban VIII

The elaboration of the architectural scheme of the tomb was slow and gradual, starting from sixteenth-century models; even slower was the execution of the various parts, practically from 1628 to 1647. Bernini overturned all the academic canons, mixing bronze with marble and establishing complex spatial relationships, in height and in depth, between the majestic figure of the pope-prince and the allegories of Charity and Justice, linked by the theatrical invention of the genius of death inscribing the name of the deceased pope on the tablet: the result is effects of heightened pictorialism and suggestions of avowed theatricality, governed nonetheless by an impeccable direction that dominates the semicircular space of the great niche (once again a proscenium) through the calculated correspondence and eurhythmy of the internal movements of the great pyramid formed by the pope at the apex and the Virtues at the base.