BERNINI, Gian Lorenzo
(b. 1598, Napoli, d. 1680, Roma)

Bust of Antonio Coppola

1612
Marble
San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Rome

Gian Lorenzo trained as a sculptor in his father's studio and maintained links with it until Pietro's death in 1629. Reports of him as a child prodigy who was practising as a sculptor at the age of eight are given in biographies written by his son Domenico Bernini and by Filippo Baldinucci. It must be assumed that he collaborated as a child on the works being created in his father's studio. This explains the astonishingly early date of the first documented work that can be attributed to him, the sharply realistic marble bust of Dr Antonio Coppola, which was based on a death mask.