Pope Urban VIII
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Truth Unveiled by Time is a 1645 sculpture by Bernini. It was intended to show Truth allegorically as a naked young woman being unveiled by a figure of Time above her, but the figure of Time was not executed (though Bernini still expressed a wish to add him as late as 1665). It refers to Michelangelo and the female figures of Rubens, and Bernini wished to emphasise the contrast between its highly-finished and unfinished surfaces.
It was begun at a time when he was under attack from his opponents in the papal court as to his failed project to build two towers onto the west front of St Peter's Basilica and their subsequent subsidence due to poor foundations. Creating this sculpture for himself rather than for sale, as well as to disprove his detractors, it is a more personal work than many of his others. He began the preparatory works for the sculpture in 1645, during the critical period after the death of his main patron pope Urban VIII, and it was almost complete by 1652. The figure of Truth was completed that year and in his will he left it in perpetuity to the first-born of the Bernini family. It remained in that family (displayed on a tilted stucco block during the 19th century) until 1924, when it was transferred to its current home on a plinth in room VIII of the Galleria Borghese. Its plinth there was originally tilted-back but it is now on a flat plinth after a recent restoration, leaving Truth more upright as it was originally displayed.
