David with Head of Goliath

This canvas belongs to Bernini's first steps as a painter, around 1623, when he was in his mid-twenties and already the sculptor Rome talked about. David presses the severed head of the giant Goliath against his body, and some scholars have seen the young artist's own face in the hero's. The museum reads the picture almost as a portrait. The firm grip shows David's quickness, pride and intelligence, while Goliath, a symbol of defeated sin, sinks into a shapeless, collapsing mask, his huge head shown and hidden at the same time. The close framing keeps everything on David's beauty. The picture's later history is well documented. Before 1662 it belonged to the Jesuit cardinal Sforza Pallavicino, a historian and confidant of Pope Alexander VII, who gave it to the pope that year. It stayed with the pope's family, the Chigi, and their heirs until the Italian state acquired it in 1982.