A formidable patron of artists and architects at the height of the Baroque in Rome, between 1657 and 1661 pope Alexander VII Chigi (1599-1667) oversaw the commission of new liturgical furnishings for the Basilica of Saint Peter to designs by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, whose sumptuous Baldacchino had adorned the high altar of the same church since 1634.

The initial designs encompassed candlesticks, crosses, and crucifixes depicting the dead Christ, his head cast down in the formula traditionally known as ‘Cristo Morto’. As the project advanced, between the summer of 1658 and the spring of 1659 the pontiff personally intervened to request a new type of crucifix be cast, representing Christ exhaling his last breath, an iconography rich in pathos described as the Cristo Vivo.

Bernini’s interpretation of this theme for the side altars of Saint Peter’s Basilica – which forms the basis for the present bronze – was modelled by his trusted collaborator Ercole Ferrata, a gifted sculptor whose career combined the lessons of Alessandro Algardi’s classicising Baroque with those of Bernini’s exuberant expressionism. Skilfully cast and chased to the finest surface detail, the present ‘Cristo Vivo’ bears witness to Bernini’s creative legacy and to one of the most fertile collaborations in the history of Baroque sculpture.

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