Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius

For a long time people argued over whose hands made this group. Bernini's son dated it to when his father was about 15, while the 17th-century German writer Joachim von Sandrart credited it partly to Bernini's father Pietro, a sculptor himself. Then a payment record from 1619 turned up, fixing the date and naming Gian Lorenzo, then about 20, as the maker. It was the first large group he carved for Cardinal Scipione Borghese. The story comes from Virgil. Troy is burning, and Aeneas, the hero Romans claimed as their ancestor, carries his old father Anchises out on his shoulders, with his small son Ascanius at his heels. Anchises clutches the family's household gods, and the boy carries the sacred fire. Look at the three bodies from top to bottom and the skin changes with age, slack and creased on the old man, taut on Aeneas, soft and full on the child. For the pose of Aeneas, the young sculptor borrowed from Michelangelo's Risen Christ in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, a short walk from the Pantheon.