Corpus for a Crucifix: The Living Christ,

after 1659

Gian Lorenzo Bernini embellished the center of Roman Catholicism, St. Peter’s basilica, according to a transcendent vision. In Pope Alexander VII (1655–67), he found a patron whose grand ambi­tions led to major architectural and sculptural commissions for Piazza San Pietro with its embracing colonnade, the papal staircase, and the sculptures encasing the throne of Saint Peter, among others. Along with these transformative large-scale commissions, plans were made for new liturgical furnishings for the side altars of St. Peter’s: the idea for Bernini to design new candlesticks appears in the pope’s diary as early as November 1656, while both bronze candlesticks and crosses were mentioned in February 1657. In June 1658, Alexander noted that Bernini showed some of the crucifixes to him. Published payment documents from the Vatican archives identify Ercole Ferrata, Bernini’s right-hand man, as the sculptor who made the models for the figures of the crucified Christ after Bernini’s drawings. The payments for the models date from 1659. In May that year, a payment specifies that Ferrata made "another model of a living [Christ] as was ordered by his Holiness" for the bronze altar crosses. A dead Christ type was thus created first, in 1658, and the living Christ, like the one in the Museum’s collection, afterward; there are fewer of the living Christ types than the dead ones on the altars at St. Peter’s. Payments extended as late as 1661. The models for the Dead Christ and Living Christ figures remained in Ferrata’s studio, as the inventory made after his death shows. Either Ferrata or a follower could have cast the Museum’s <em>Living Christ</em> for a private patron. Like the versions still in situ on the altars at St. Peter’s, this corpus, or body, of the crucified Christ, was gilt. The donor, Charles Scribner, has written about lending the altar crucifix to the University Chapel and the Aquinas Institute for Roman Catholic masses during his years as a student, and detaching the crucifix (a separate piece) from its base in order to carry it in processionals.