ABSTRACT
In seventeenth-century Rome works of art resulted from considerable and often collective intellectual labor, embedded in institutions and social networks. The art of seventeenth-century Rome has not given rise to prescriptive art theory exactly because it sought the instant effect, astonishment and persuasion. The notion of Roman baroque as a form of rhetoric has fostered attention for baroque spectacle and festival architecture, crucial negotiations of political, social and religious agendas. The preponderance of biography in art historical studies of Bernini has engendered a close identification of the artist's art, his life and its cultural context. Bernini's biographies are specific interpretations of a historical persona that encapsulates an oeuvre rather than repositories of a presumed set of artistic principles that explain the workings of Bernini's art. Selecting one particular written oeuvre to open up the perspective on art in Bernini's Rome theory runs the substantial risk of substituting one "closed" body of art theoretical texts for another.
