ABSTRACT
Careful control was required in order to manipulate, reflect and direct light in such ways. Direct, strong, aggressive external daylight would have destroyed the delicate tones of the baroque “shadowplay” on the various planes of relief and carving. The German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher investigated ways of using mirrors to multiply images and lighting effects. The general characteristics of the treatment of light in this rich and controversial period could be studied and analysed through the work of many architects. In the Raimondi Chapel in San Pietro in Montorio, Gian Lorenzo Bernini integrated light, architecture and sculpture in a space of startling quality. Bernini used architecture in partnership with sculpture to frame the tableau of Ludovica. Francesco Borromini used a minimum of materials, and transfigured them by means of light in order to endow his works with a powerful unity of form.
