mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Eleanor Herman
gasping and gesturing in response to something that didn’t exist, which
they still do to this very day.
Rome’s art commissions, like marriages and political appointments,
were decided at the dinner table. Bernini’s wit sparkled like the crystal
goblets he drank from. Draped in his eternal, old-fashioned black clothes,
Borromini was more like Death eating an onion, his face scowling and
puckered, lacking only a sickle to complete the picture. As it was unpleasant
to have Doom as a dinner guest, he usually wasn’t invited back.
When clients did give him work, he was often so temperamental that
they fired him, or he stormed off the job in a blistering rage.
Borromini felt that Urban VIII should have given him the two great
commissions of the 1620s—the construction of the Palazzo Barberini
and the design and casting of Saint Peter’s baldachino. The pope gave
both jobs to Bernini, and Borromini worked under his archrival for one
tenth the pay. As Borromini saw it, he had crafted the guts of the projects
while Bernini was toasted at all the best parties and took all the
credit, never sharing a shred with his team of talented workmen. “I do
not mind that he has the money,” Borromini would say, “but I do mind
that he enjoys the honor of my labors.” 15
Frowning in the shadows, Borromini waited for his chance to pounce
on his despised competitor. And it came. The façade of Saint Peter’s was
always meant to have bell towers, or campanili. In 1618 the great architect
Carlo Maderno had begun to build foundations for low, modest
towers at each end of the façade, but work stopped when Paul V died in
1621. In 1638 Urban VIII commanded Bernini to build magnificent
three-story bell towers, some two hundred feet high, loaded with pilasters,
arches, colored marble inlay, and marble columns.
When he heard of Bernini’s latest papal commission, Borromini
grumbled that the foundations had not been built to support the heavier
weight and the façade would crack. But those who heard him were
mindful of his sour grapes, and his warnings were ignored. Borromini
kept a careful eye on his enemy’s construction and was delighted to find
that as the south tower rose, alarming cracks appeared in the church
façade. The added weight was indeed pushing the south part of the
building into the shifting, sandy soil below.
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