“So where ever you go in Rome now, you are really in the cavaliere’s [Bernini’s] city.”
Simon Schama (The Power of Art, BBC)

“When he wanted something, he got it by the look in his eyes alone.”
Filippo Baldinucci (1624-1697),
Italian art historian and biographer, including that of Bernini (written in 1682)

Bernini (1598-1680)
Self-portrait, 1623 (Italian Ways)