In the context of St. Peter's Baldachin, analyze the Plinths and the Barberini coats of arms of the Description and history.
Four marble plinths form the basis of the columns that support the baldachin. The two outer sides of each plinth are decorated with the Barberini family's coat of arms. This series of eight, nearly identical coats of arms forms a narrative that has attracted over the centuries the interest of writers and art historians.
The coat of arms itself represents the three bees of the Barberini family. Each shield is enclosed by a woman's head at the top and by the head of a satyr at the bottom. A papal tiara with crossed keys surmounts the shield. All shields look nearly identical, but – if examined one after another starting with the left-hand front plinth – they reveal dramatic changes in the expression on the female face. The coat of arms itself, flat on the first plinth, undergoes a noticeable deformation, progressively bulging up to the sixth shield and flattening again on the last two shields. Above the eighth shield, the female face is replaced by the head of a winged child or putto. The allegory behind the coats of arms is universally interpreted as representing the various stages of childbirth. As Witkowski writes:The scene begins on the face of the left-hand front plinth; the woman's face begins to contract; on the second and following plinths the features pass through a series of increasingly violent convulsions. Simultaneously, the hair becomes increasingly dishevelled; the eyes, which at first express a bearable degree of suffering, take on a haggard look; the mouth, closed at first, opens, then screams with piercing realism. ... Finally, comes the delivery: the belly subsides and the mother's head disappears, to give way to a cherubic baby's head with curly hair, smiling beneath the unchanging pontifical insignia.
Several explanations have been put forward for this unusually explicit allegory displayed in the most sacred place of Roman Catholic Christianity (the burial place of Saint Peter). Some scholars favor a symbolic explanation, suggesting that Bernini intended to represent the labor of the papacy and of the earthly church through the allegory of a woman's pregnancy. A more popular tradition tells the story of the complicated pregnancy of a niece of Urban VIII's and of his vow to dedicate an altar in St. Peter's to a successful delivery. A third tradition explains the allegory as Bernini's revenge against the pope's decision to disavow a child illegally born to his nephew Taddeo Barberini and the sister of one of Bernini's pupils.The childbirth sequence in Bernini's plinths was praised, among others, by director Sergei Eisenstein, who in a piece titled Montage and Architecture written in the late 1930s describes it as "one of the most spectacular compositions of that great master Bernini", with the coats of arms as "eight shots, eight montage sequences of a whole montage scenario."
Sergei Eisenstein Barberini coat of arms satyr crossed keys putto Urban VIII baldachin Barberini family left Taddeo Barberini earthly church Saint Peter papal tiara plinth