Estasi di Santa Teresa (the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, the 1647-1652 Gian Lorenzo Bernini sculptural group in the Cornaro Chapel of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Via XX Settembre 17, Rome): the single most theatrically conceived and most physically provocative sculpture in the Western sacred art tradition, and the primary text for every next discussion of the relationship between spiritual and physical experience in art, between the mystical vision and its bodily representation, and between artistic genius and institutional religious commission. Bernini was 49 years old when he received the Cornaro commission (Cardinal Federico Cornaro, the Venetian cardinal whose family chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria he was redesigning from 1647 to 1652) and at the height of his technical mastery and his ability to conceive the theatrical "total work of art" (the Gesamtkunstwerk before the term existed) that made him the central figure of Roman Baroque.
The specific Bernini Cornaro Chapel program (the theatrical conception, what Bernini designed as the complete chapel experience, not just the Teresa sculpture): the marble theater boxes (the two side walls of the chapel are carved as if they were theater boxes, with the members of the Cornaro family (the cardinal and his ancestors, represented in portrait-like relief sculpture) leaning forward and conversing in the boxes as if watching the Teresa vision on the chapel altar below them). The hidden lighting (the concealed yellow-glass window above the marble pediment that floods the Teresa group with natural light from an unseen source, the specific theatrical device (the hidden light source) that Bernini uses to make the divine light appear to originate from within the vision rather than from the chapel walls). And the Teresa sculpture itself (the Carmelite saint reclining on a cloud, the angel with the golden arrow, the specific Bernini marble technique that conveys the fabric heaviness of the Carmelite habit, the angel's lighter drapery, and the physical laxity of the mystical ecstasy in three different surface textures).
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Ecstasy of Saint Teresa: The Sculpture, the Chapel, and the Visit
The Teresa Sculpture
Estasi di Santa Teresa sculpture details (the specific Bernini technical achievements in the 1647-1652 marble group): the Teresa figure (the saint reclining on a cloud, the head thrown back, the eyes closed, the mouth slightly open, the specific physical markers of the Teresean mystical ecstasy as described in the Vida (the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) in which she describes the specific sensation: "the pain was so great that I screamed aloud. But simultaneously I felt so infinite a sweetness that one can't desire it to cease, nor will the soul be content with anything less than God")): the angel figure (the slightly smiling angel with the gold metal arrow, the gilded bronze arrow is the one non-marble element of the group, the specific material contrast (the warm gold metal against the cold white marble) that Bernini uses to mark the divine instrument of transformation): and the specific marble treatment of the drapery (the Teresa habit in the heavy Carmelite wool, the cloud in the lighter marble, and the angel's robe in the specifically differentiated marble texture that allows the viewer to "read" three different material qualities in the same block of Carrara white).
Chiesa Di Santa Maria Della Vittoria Estasi Di Santa Teresa: skip-the-line & guided tours
Compare skip-the-line tickets and guided visits for Chiesa Di Santa Maria Della Vittoria Estasi Di Santa Teresa.
See availability & prices →Compare tours on Viator →We may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.The Complete Chapel Experience
Cornaro Chapel complete experience (the 15-minute visit that Bernini intended): enter the chapel (the left transept of Santa Maria della Vittoria, no ticket, always accessible during church opening hours (7:00-12:00 and 15:30-18:00 daily. Free)): position yourself in the center of the chapel floor (approximately 5m from the altar) and look at the complete composition (the theater boxes on both side walls, the Teresa group on the altar, and the hidden light source from above): read the composition from left to right (the Cornaro family witnesses in the left box observe the vision, the vision (Teresa and the angel) is lit from above, the right box contains more family members): the specific Bernini theatrical program (the viewer positioned in the chapel is the fourth audience element, behind the viewer (the chapel entrance), the two box-sides (left and right), and the altar performance): the total work of art is the chapel, not just the sculpture.
Q&A: Ecstasy of Saint Teresa Rome
Why is the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa considered controversial?
The specific controversy (the historical and contemporary): the 18th-century French diplomat Charles de Brosses (Lettres familières sur l'Italie, 1739) described the Teresa as "si elle n'est pas en extase, je n'y connais rien" ("if that isn't an ecstatic experience, I don't know what one is"), the specific French Enlightenment reading of the Teresa as a representation of sexual ecstasy rather than mystical ecstasy was the first articulation of the controversy that every next century has repeated in different terms. The contemporary reading: Lacan's 1972 analysis of the Teresa (the specific Lacanian interpretation of the "jouissance" (the French psychoanalytic term for the pleasure that exceeds the symbolic) that the Teresa figure represents) and the feminist art history debate (the specific question of whether the Teresa represents the female mystical experience on its own terms or is a male artist's projection of what female spiritual experience looks like from the outside) continue in the scholarly literature. The specific Bernini answer to the controversy: Bernini himself, when asked whether the Teresa was too sensual, reportedly replied that the experience of God is the most intense possible experience, and that any representation of that intensity must engage the body as well as the spirit.
Internal Links
- Bernini Roma: L'Estasi e il Circuito
- Scultura Barocca: Santa Teresa nel Contesto
- Fotografare l'Estasi di Santa Teresa: La Luce Nascosta
- Santa Maria della Vittoria: Ingresso Gratuito
- Santa Teresa in Inverno: La Cappella Cornaro
- Roma Barocca: I Segreti della Cappella Cornaro
- Bernini: Da Sant'Andrea all'Estasi di Teresa
