is a unique exploration of Gian Lorenzo Bernini the sculptor, offering new insights into the artist including discussions of his stylistic innovations and the ways he approached sculpture. Placing his life and work within a social, anthropological, and historical context, Pestilli gives a fascinating and in-depth account of the artist, from the Rome in which he lived and its reception to foreign sculptors to the myth-making aspects of his biographies, and his critics. Beautifully illustrated throughout, this engagingly written book draws on a deep familiarity with both historic and modern Italian culture to give readers a vivid account of sculpture and sculptors in early modern Rome and Bernini's lasting legacy.