Keats and Bernini

Fontana della Barcaccia, 1627 (Baroque) - Rome, Italy,
Pietro Bernini (son of Gian Lorenzo Bernini)

At the bottom of the Spanish Steps built to the Piazza di Spagna, Rome leading to the Egyptian obelisk and the Church of Trinita dei Monti on the Pincio Hill, where the 16th-century Villa Medici sits the Fontana della Barcaccia.  As Keats was terminally ill his doctor advised him to take a respite and Keats was said to have 'fallen under Rome's spell and would fall asleep at night outside listening to Bernini's fountain'.  It is of no surprise that one great artist inspired another nor is it a surprise that the fountain of the great Master Bernini's son brought peace and tranquility to Keats in his last days.  Both Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini both were exceedingly talented sculptors and artists and Keats, well.... He can speak for himself.... still....


Bright star! Would I were steadfast as thou art –

Bright star! Would I were steadfast as thou art –

  Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

  Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

  Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,

Or gazing of the new soft fallen mask

  Of snow upon the mountain and the moors –

No- yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

  Pillow’d upon my fail love’s ripening breast,

To feel forever it’s soft fall and swell,

  Awake forever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear forever her tender-taken breath,

  And so live ever- or else swoon to death.

-Keats, 1884

Fontana della Barcaccia, 1627 (Baroque) - Rome, Italy,
Pietro Bernini (son of Gian Lorenzo Bernini)