Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/123



Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, whose renown filled all Europe in the seventeenth century, was called the Michael Angelo of his age, because, like that great artist, he united in an eminent degree, the three great branches of art—painting, sculpture, and architecture, though he was chiefly renowned in the two last.

BERNINI'S PRECOCITY.

Bernini manifested his extraordinary talents almost in infancy. At the age of eight years, he executed a child's head in marble, which was considered a wonder. When he was ten years old, his talents had become so widely known, that Pope Paul V. wished to see the prodigy who was the astonishment of artists, and on his being brought into his presence, desired him to draw a figure of St. Paul, which he did in half an hour, so much to the satisfaction of the pontiff that he recommended him to Cardinal Barberini, saying, "Direct the studies of this child, who will become the Michael Angelo of this century."

BERNINI'S STRIKING PREDICTION.

During Bernini's distinguished career, Charles I. of England endeavored in vain to allure him to visit his court. Not succeeding in this, he employed Vandyck to paint two excellent portraits of himself, one in profile and the other in full face, and sent