Domenico Bernini,
Il Tribunale della S. Rota Romana
(Rome: Stamperia del Bernabó, 1717).

Domenico Bernini (1657-1723) was a child of Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), one of Italy’s greatest sculptors, credited with creating the Baroque style. Unlike his father, Domenico devoted himself to writing histories of the church, after serving as a canon at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

Here Domenico treats the history and procedures of the Roman Rota, the highest appellate court of the Catholic Church. At the same time, the work reveals that an interest in art – and artistic social connections – remained in the family. Throughout his career, Gian Lorenzo himself had enjoyed the patronage of cardinals (most importantly Scipione Borghese, who filled the Villa Borghese in Rome with Bernini’s sculptures) and also popes. His son Domenico dedicates this work to Pope Clement XI (1700-1721), a great patron of the arts, and has relied on an engraver named Hubert Vincent to adorn the pages of this deluxe edition with exceptional illustrations.

One notable engraving shows a procession of cardinals on the way to St. Peters, the papal residence, with white linen being shown at open windows. In religious processions on important feast days, white linen was used as a color symbolic of purity and holiness.