Costanza, Rachel Blackmore

Art history remembers Gian Lorenzo Bernini as one of the great geniuses of the Baroque. It remembers his sculptures, his fountains, his monumental works across Rome. The way he could make marble appear to become skin, fabric, and movement.

It also remembers one extraordinary portrait of a woman. A young woman with tousled hair, parted lips, and a shirt loosely open at the neck, captured as though in motion, as if she might begin speaking at any moment. Her name was Costanza Piccolomini Bonarelli. For centuries, she remained in history primarily as Bernini’s lover and muse. But behind the famous marble bust lies a much darker story. A story of passion, power, jealousy, and violence.

And it is precisely this story that Rachel Blackmore brings back to life in her debut historical novel, Costanza. Interestingly, Blackmore did not initially even know Costanza’s name. She first encountered her story while watching a BBC documentary about Bernini. As the author explains:

“They didn’t mentioned her by name but they did mention what happened to her. I basically, went on a hunt for this woman and when I discovered her story I couldn’t help but write it.”

And that absence becomes the natural starting point for the novel – a woman whose face survived in marble, while her life was almost completely overshadowed by the man who sculpted her.

Rome, 1636

In the novel, Costanza Piccolomini is a young married woman when she meets Gian Lorenzo Bernini – already a celebrated sculptor and one of the most powerful figures in Roman society. The attraction between them quickly becomes a secret affair.

But theirs is never a relationship between equals. Bernini possesses not only extraordinary talent and fame, but enormous influence. He works for the most powerful figures in Rome and enjoys the patronage of Pope Urban VIII. Costanza risks her reputation, her marriage, and her social position. Bernini, meanwhile, decides to do something extraordinary.

He will immortalize her. He creates her portrait in marble. Today, the bust remains one of the most intimate and unusual works associated with his career. But roughly a year after creating one of the most vivid portrayals of a woman in Baroque sculpture, Bernini orders that same living face to be disfigured.

When the “Great Lover” Becomes an Abuser

Historical accounts tell us that in 1638 Bernini discovered that Costanza was also involved with his younger brother, Luigi. His reaction was violently extreme. He attacked his brother and pursued him through Rome with a weapon. But Costanza’s punishment was different. Bernini sent a servant to her home. Pretending to deliver a gift, the man approached her and slashed her face with a razor. This was not simply an eruption of jealousy. The mutilation of a woman’s face has its own history as a form of punishment and control – a way of publicly marking a woman for perceived sexual transgression.

And what happened next is even more revealing. Costanza was imprisoned for adultery. The servant who carried out the attack was punished. Bernini was fined 3,000 scudi, but thanks to his position and powerful patrons, he was soon pardoned by Pope Urban VIII. The genius continued his career. The woman was left with the scar.

How Cultural Memory Chooses Who to Remember

This is what transforms Costanza into far more than a historical love story. It raises an uncomfortable question about how we tell the stories of great artists. How easily does violence become a footnote when the person responsible has already been declared a genius by cultural history? Bernini remains Bernini – one of the greatest sculptors in European art. Costanza remains “his muse.”

The irony is almost cruel. Her marble face becomes a work of art admired for centuries. Her real face was mutilated on his orders. Blackmore’s novel attempts to shift the perspective – not to deny Bernini’s artistic genius, but to move Costanza from the margins of his biography into the center of her own story.

Costanza Does Not Remain Only a Victim

And perhaps the most important part of the true story begins exactly where the traditional version usually ends. Costanza survives. After her imprisonment, she returns to her husband, Matteo Bonarelli, a sculptor and associate of Bernini. But her life does not end as the story of a fallen woman permanently defined by scandal.

Documents show that Costanza later developed her own career as an art dealer and became a successful figure within Rome’s artistic world. That changes the way we can look at the famous bust entirely. The woman in the marble is not simply a lover. She is not merely a muse. And she is certainly not only a victim. She had a life before Bernini. And a life after him.

Seventeenth-Century Rome, Researched During Lockdown

Reconstructing this world required enormous historical research from Rachel Blackmore. Making the task even more complicated, much of the novel was written during the pandemic.

“I spent a lot of time online, (I wrote this in lockdown), I spent a lot of time going around churches virtually and I also visited a marble sculptress to learn just how carrara marble is sculpted and how artists create the portraits that they do.”

And although the story is inevitably connected to one of the most famous men of the seventeenth century, Blackmore’s favorite characters are actually the women. As she explains:

“I’m going to cheat, and say that I thought a lot about female friendship when I was writing this novel and my favourite characters by far are the women who surround Costanza. Who pick her up, dust her down and get her going again when life gets really tough, because, I think it’s really what female friendships do and impart Costanza is really an homage to my own female friends.”