Angel with the Sudarium
by FANCELLI, Cosimo, Marble, over life-size
One of the last major projects by Bernini was the angels for the Ponte Sant’Angelo in Rome. Planned and executed between 1667 and 1669, the suite of eight, and subsequently ten, angels was designed by Bernini for Pope Clement IX as an embellishment to the ancient Roman Pons Aelius, which formed the principal link between the Vatican and the city. The major sculptors of the day were chosen to carve individual statues of the angels, each holding an instrument of the Passion of Christ, with two reserved for Bernini himself.
Bernini transferred to Fancelli the execution of the angel with the Sudary. This angel shows, in the somewhat voluptuous forms and the type of the head, how indebted Fancelli was to Pietro da Cortona while at the same time he paid tribute to the current Berninesque manner.