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Bernini masterpiece loses a finger on its way back to Rome church

UPDATE, May 4th 2018: Saint Bibiana's missing finger has been reattached. Rome's heritage authorities say it suffered a clean break and wasn't damaged in the fall, allowing them to successfully restore the statue to the extent that the fracture is "practically imperceptible".

Published: 2 May 2018 16:57 CEST
Bernini masterpiece loses a finger on its way back to Rome church
Bernini's Saint Bibiana on display in the Borghese Gallery. Photo: irisphoto11/DepositPhotos

A statue of Saint Bibiana by Italian master Gian Lorenzo Bernini had a finger knocked off as it was returned from an exhibition in the Galleria Borghese.

The marble statue, which depicts the Roman martyr holding a palm leaf, was left missing the fourth figure of the saint's right hand. In these photos, all that remains is a small stump. 

The accident reportedly happened as the statue was being lifted back into place above the altar of Santa Bibiana, the church in central Rome for which Bernini created it in 1626.

The newly restored work had been on loan for the first time in its history to the capital's Borghese Gallery, which recently hosted a major exhibition of the Baroque sculptor's masterpieces.

“The Borghese Gallery requested the statue for a Bernini exhibition and we couldn't say no,” Carlo Marisi, one of the church's priests, told Il Messaggero.

“But when it came back it wasn't put into place right away and while they were positioning it they accidentally brought it into contact with the wall. That's how it lost a finger.”


Saint Bibiana in situ with all her fingers still intact. Photo: WikiPaintings, CC BY-SA 3.0

Bernini is famed for his virtuoso rendering of details, including his figures' delicate hands and fingers, which are infamously difficult to carve in marble without snapping. 

The curator of the Borghese exhibition specifically praised the skill that went into Saint Bibiana's now broken hand, writing in the show's catalogue: “The fingers of the right hand, spread and suspended in the air, are a true miracle of technique.” 

It's not the first of Bernini's works to be damaged, though until now members of the public have been to blame. In 2016, vandals broke off part of a tusk on the Elephant and Obelisk, a Bernini sculpture in Rome's Piazza della Minerva, while the year before that Dutch football fans filled his Barcaccia fountain at the foot of the Spanish Steps with empty bottles and beer cans. 


The broken tusk. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Other Italian artworks to suffer damage include a 600-year-old statue in Florence's Galleria dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, which had a finger snapped off by an American tourist, and Pio Fedi's famous statue of the Rape of Polyxena, also in Florence, which also lost a finger off one of its figures.

The Drunk Satyr statue in Milan's Brera Academy, meanwhile, lost a leg to a visiting student who climbed it to take selfies. And tourists in Cremona broke off part of the city's prized statue of Hercules reportedly doing the same thing.

ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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