Over a century before Bernini’s cre

Over a century before Bernini’s creations, Martin Luther had begun the Protestant Reformation, highlighting significant cracks in the armour of the Church, and undermining Her temporal and spiritual power. The Roman Church responded with a counter-Reformation. Codified by the Council of Trent, it sought to re-establish the supremacy of the Roman Church, in part through emphasis on the veneration of the Virgin, the saints, their relics and miracles. Dominant among the figures who would carry forward this new impulse was Ignatius Loyola, whose Spiritual Exercises provided meditations and prayers designed to create a state of spiritual ecstasy, and embodied the changing mood.
By the early-seventeenth century, over half a century later, military victories, and wealth from the New World, brought new optimism to Rome. In celebration, a flurry of canonizations followed, including St Ignatius in 1622. The new religious atmosphere required a different aesthetic, and an theatrical style, charged with emotion, developed in distinct contrast to the didactic and