Bernini Started It Ryan Clement & Charlotte Matthai Advisor: Mark Jarzombek Readers: Yolande Daniels, Deborah Garcia, & Timothy Hyde
Bernini’s altar at St. Peter’s Basilica is a sacred focal point and manifestation of divine power and glory — the Church at the height of its power and an authoritative flaunting of papal infallibility.
berini crest on the piers of the Baldacchino are the face and genitals of a woman in labor. Viewed in a circumambulatory procession, the rhythms of contractions are depicted through her facial contortions and vaginal transmutation. Her genitals are thinly disguised as the face of a satyr that emerges in the final scene: no longer a virgin and hungry for more. This is not the vagina of Mary; this was not an immaculate conception.
The altar rests upon the tomb of St. Peter, from which the Pope traces his legitimacy. At this place of sacrifice, wine is transubstantiated to blood and bread to flesh. Yet, beneath the sacrificial locus — at the foot of the Pope — are lurking flesh and fluids not-so-divine. Sculpted into the Bar-
Bernini has inserted an other, a queer, an abject form of the revered sacrifices
8
