Italy: Rome restores Bernini’s beloved Cornaro Chapel

Rome: One of Rome’s greatest treasures – the Cornaro Chapel with its sculptural masterpiece by Baroque genius Gian Lorenzo Bernini – has been restored to its dazzling glory.

The chapel, part of the S. Maria della Vittoria church, contains one of Bernini’s most celebrated sculptures, the Ecstasy of St Teresa, completed in 1652.

The chapel is a favourite of visitors to Rome as well as the artist who described it modestly as his “least bad” work.

The restoration process, carried out by the superintendency of Rome, included studies of the 17th-century marble sculpture which depicts the mystical experience of St Teresa of Avila.

In the dramatic scene, the saint lies on a cloud in religious ecstasy after encountering an angel.

The figures are surrounded by gilded stucco rays, with the sculpture’s beauty accentuated by sunlight that streams through a window hidden in the aedicule, or shrine.

In February 2020 the city restored the Albertoni Chapel, including Bernini’s funerary sculpture of Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, at the church of S. Francesco a Ripa in Trastevere.