This post is about the juxtaposition of holiness and horror. The statue you see here is “the Vision of Constantine,” sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (d. 1680), one of history’s most talented artists. Bernini is famous for his beautiful marble renderings of the human form, and most of his beloved works were of well known Christian leaders. In the case of this piece, which Bernini had sculpted in 1670, Constantine is struck with a miraculous vision that led him to become the first Christian Emperor of Rome.
Both Bernini and Constantine were connected to Christianity — Bernini’s work promoted a self-confident Catholicism in the age of the Counter-Reformation. The way he made use of the natural light to set off Constantine’s legendary vision, the naturalism of both horse and rider, and the sense of movement showcase the artist’s great skill. Constantine’s importance to the history of Christianity was well known to Bernini’s audience, and here the Emperor appears in giant form, humbled by a force that was thought to have granted him the divine right to hold political power.
The horror comes in with the personal stories of these men. While their public selves were religiously self-rightous, both men were involved with violence against former lovers that could fit one of today’s crime podcasts. In Bernini’s case, the artist engaged in an affair with a married woman named Costanza, who ended up getting together with Bernini’s younger brother. In a fit of rage, Bernini hired someone to go to Costanza’s home and slash his mistress’ face with a razor. In the case of Constantine, the emperor had his wife Fausta essentially boiled alive. His motives are unclear, but involved treason involving their son Crispus whom Constantine also had put to death. While Fausta was in the heated baths, the emperor ordered the temperature raised until she was dead.
Neither man was likely to have considered his actions as psychopathic, and both led long and prosperous lives, paragons of religious leadership in their own day.
