Salvi and Maini
I know that as Mr. Maini will forever be responsible to the world for everything, good or bad, that results from his execution of this group he should be completely at liberty to act according to his own mind and his own knowledge, without my claiming to restrict him in any way; but I know equally that if I am to receive the praise, or the blame, for the good or bad result of what I have done with the water for the rocks, I must also satisfy myself (and not blindly accept his sole authority, or that of others who he asserts have approved his model) until I have compared my principles with those reasons – which I shall give shortly – that will also be approved or rejected (as appropriate) with other contrary and convincing [reasons] in order to persuade me to change my mind and agree willingly with their opinion as one that will enable me to achieve greater perfection in my work. Apart from flattering myself that I can easily be absolved of any kind of accusation, and that I am free of any reproach that could be made toward me, if [Your Eminence] will reflect impartially and with an unbiased mind that as this work is the child of my loins – whatever the idea of the whole may be – I should and must take the liberty of suggesting to Mr. Maini that he express what I have designed without my being liable to a charge of wanting only to restrict his own work and that, not having been given any reason to persuade me otherwise, there is nothing that could absolve me from doing what I do, this being a work which concerns the glory of my Prince, Your Eminence, who with paternal kindness deigned to command me to [do] it and to whose graciousness in assisting and protecting me I must respond with all my heart and soul.”
From Salvi’s own words, therefore, we learn that despite the idea of the whole work being the “child of his loins”, he had been obliged to accept Maini as the sculptor of the central group, on condition that they should cooperate on equal terms to create the statues in question. And it is evident from Salvi’s letter that Maini, “such a celebrated professor” did not want to listen or even deign to reply to his requests that the statues be arranged in a certain way because otherwise he [Salvi] would have been obliged to alter a large part of his plans for the rocks. In fact, the design, which is undoubtedly by Maini, shows what a vastly different composition the sculptor wanted, even though it only had the same number of features as Salvi had designed: Neptune is still in his great shell-shaped chariot with its two horses and two struggling tritons being swept away by the waters, yet the arrangement manages to be appreciably more powerful and beautiful and much more in the style of Bernini.
However, Salvi was modest but unwavering, clinging partly to those rocks he had no intention of altering, and partly – and quite rightly – to his resolution to make the cardinal understand that the statues in the group ought to be spaced out over a wider area so that they would be in greater harmony with the immense façade, rocks and pool; and he succeeded in having his own way. Much has been said about this central group, whose studied formality is typical of the 18th century, ever since, in 1900, Fraschetti published a drawing which he attributed to Bernini. There have been arguments as to why Fraschetti maintained that Salvi’s group derived from that drawing and his theory was generally rejected, partly because it was not accepted that Bernini was the artist. Next Page...
