Apollo and Daphne

Interesting facts

Bernini, born in 1598, was only about 23 when he began carving the group in August 1622.

Work stopped in 1623 so Bernini could make his David for the same cardinal; he returned to Apollo and Daphne in 1624 and finished in autumn 1625.

The marble stands 243 cm high, making both figures roughly life-size.

Cardinal Scipione Borghese ordered it after giving away Bernini's Rape of Proserpina to Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Pope Gregory XV.

The Latin couplet on the base, written by Maffeo Barberini before he became pope, warns that whoever chases fleeting beauty is left holding leaves and bitter berries.

The scene comes from the first book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, the episode running roughly from line 450 to line 567.

Bernini's first printed biographer, Pierre Cureau de la Chambre, called it his masterpiece, and Filippo Baldinucci in 1682 hailed it as a miracle of art.

Forty years after finishing it, Bernini brought the group up at least four times in conversation during his 1665 stay in France.

Apollo's figure is often compared with the ancient Apollo Belvedere, the celebrated Roman marble in the Vatican.

Not every visitor was won over: an English travel writer in 1829 complained that Apollo looked too much like a shepherd.

Why it is worth it

Bernini was still a young sculptor when he carved Apollo and Daphne for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, between 1622 and 1625, and the group is still displayed in the villa for which it was made. It captures the last second of Ovid's story: the god has just caught up with the nymph, his hand on her hip, and at that touch she begins to turn into a laurel tree. Bark is closing over her thighs, her toes are rooting into the ground and her fingers and hair are sprouting leaves, while Apollo's cloak still flies out behind him from the chase.

The marble is carved so thin in places — the leaves, the strands of hair, the tips of the fingers — that it looks as if it should break, and part of that fine work was done by Bernini's assistant Giuliano Finelli. The sculptor planned the group to be read from a single viewpoint, slightly to the right, as a visitor would have seen it on entering the room; from there both faces and the whole transformation are visible at once. It now stands in the middle of the room, so walk all the way round: from the left side you see mostly a tangle of hair and the supports that hold the composition together. The base carries a moralising Latin verse by Pope Urban VIII, which helped justify a pagan subject in a cardinal's house.

The Galleria Borghese holds the other great early Bernini groups too — the Rape of Proserpina and David — displayed in the rooms for which many of them were made.

Getting there

The Galleria Borghese stands in the Villa Borghese park on the northern edge of central Rome, about 2.4 km from the Esquilino district around Termini. The nearest airport is Rome Ciampino (CIA), about 15 km away.

From the encyclopaedia

Apollo and Daphne is a life-sized marble sculpture by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, which was executed between 1622 and 1625. It is regarded as one of the artistic marvels of the Baroque age. The statue is housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, along with several other examples of the artist's most important early works. The sculpture depicts the climax of the story of Apollo and Daphne, as written in Ovid's Metamorphoses, wherein the nymph Daphne escapes Apollo's advances by transforming into a laurel tree.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Apollo and Daphne

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

On these lists

From the encyclopaedia