Sul perduto bozzetto della medaglia per il theatrum canonizationis (1629) di Andrea Corsini nella Basilica di San Pietro a Roma

Abstract

On 22 April 1629, the day of the canonisation of the Florentine Andrea Corsini, the apse of St. Peter’s was refigured and refunctioned with a scenographic ephemeral decoration designed by Giovan Lorenzo Bernini. It consisted of a wooden lining with a peribolos of architraved columns, all painted to simulate stone, bronze and gold, with the papal throne in the centre. The ceremony is immortalized in a description by Federico Cristofari, in an engraving (1625) from a reworked copper plate (1628-1629) and on two medals bearing, on the reverse side, a figurative scene in which some details of the canonisation can be glimpsed. A preparatory sketch for an uncoined medal (Raclin Murphy Museum of Art) and, in recent years, a second sketch for an unexecuted medal have also been traced back to the event. The latter sketch, which was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War and of which only a photographic reproduction is preserved (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Madrid), offers further valuable information on the teatro aperto created to ensure that the ceremony was fully visible to the faithful present in the Basilica.