Bernini's father, Pietro, was such a sculptor. Of Tuscan origins, he had moved to Rome from Naples with his Neapolitan wife, Angelica Galante, when Gian Lorenzo was about 8. Ruled by the popes ...

In the mid-17th century, Pope Innocent X commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini—Rome’s premiere Baroque sculptor—to redecorate two of the fountains in the city’s famous Piazza Navona.