lleries was the primary influence on his art (Hibbard 25). According to Baldinucci, from the age of seven Bernini spent three full years doing nothing but drawing there (9). He copied the popes' enormous collection of antique statuary (mainly the later, Hellenistic, works) as well as the High Renaissance painting of Raphael, Giulio Romano and Michelangelo. It was from these sources, rather than from older, classic art, that young Bernini developed his impression of the antique. As Hibbard notes, Bernini was attracted to the "expressive, powerful works of late antiquity" largely because he saw them through the eyes of the Mannerist painters (25). Unlike Renaissance artists who looked more directly to the more ancient past, "unclassic antiquity and Renaissance classicism were [Bernini's] models" (Hibbard 25).
Bernini did occasionally take a conventional approach to sculpture. The Tomb of Matilda of Tuscany (1633-1637) (Hibbard 100) at St. Peter's is an example of what Wittkower believed was "a concession to a prevailing taste for classicism" with the portrait statue's traditional contrapposto and sober drapery presenting a strong contrast to the vast majority of Bernini's sculptures (32). The tomb was carved, for the most part, by Bernini's assistants working from his designs and models. Hibbard suggests that this may account for the disappointing quality of the work (101). But the same procedure was
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