This is the funeral monument of Pope Alexander VII Chigi who, in just 12 years of his pontificate (1655 - 1667), revolutionized and embellished Rome with numerous monuments, even changing the urban planning. Thanks to him we have, for example, this incredible masterpiece that just in an impressive monument like the St Peter's Basilica could be. 

The Pope leaned often to the mastery of Bernini (if you want to read about another project would by this pontiff and designed by Bernini, click here) and even in this case, just after five months from his election to the papal throne, he commissioned him his own tomb. The irony of fate willed that the great master of the Baroque, surely overwhelmed by numerous commitments, was not able to start the project. And when the pope died, for the so-called "mal di pietra" (painful kidney stones), it was not completed. 

In fact, only in 1678, and after that two other Popes came after Alexander VII, the funeral monument saw the light. Leaning against this position, the closest possible to the St. Peter's tomb in the homonymous basilica, there is mainly the figure of the pope, almost appealing, kneeling and absorbed in prayer. The complex is completed by four virtues, Prudence, Justice and Charity and Truth at the foreground. The latter rests his foot on a globe, to symbolize the universality of this value, and human virtue. Tradition says that, close to the point where there is England, a small plug was placed by Bernini, to understand how for the pope the anglicanism was a real thorn in the side! A pinch of politics, even in a tomb.

Moreover the base and, above all, the red jasper drape complement the composition, the vertical thrust and the shape of the pyramid. Keep in mind how Bernini didn't use to work the marble in the first person, indeed. He prepared a whole series of drawings and preparatory sketches in clay that then, faithfully, will be replicated in marble and natural size by the many artists and craftsmen of which was the composition of his team. I conclude by dedicating a few lines to the Death, clearly represented with that beautiful bronze  figure that has a skeleton with an hourglass in his hand, which almost seems to play hide-and-seek with the skull hidden under the drape. This ironic figure, Thanatos is the male version of the Death that dwelt in the dark depths of the earth. It almost seems that only a few is allowed, really, to cope with this death that loves to lurk and hide.