By the time he was 20, Bernini was a sculptor, carving statues out of marble. He had learnt a lot, not just how to carve marble, which he learnt from his father, but how to make figures that told stories like Carracci's and Michelangelo's and seemed to be alive, like Caravaggio's. An important man in the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, saw his work and became his patron, paying Bernini to make many beautiful sculptures for him and his family. Soon the cardinal's uncle got to hear about Bernini. He was Pope Urban VIII, the most powerful man in Italy. He asked Bernini to work for him at St. Peter's Basilica. Bernini spent 40 years of his life there, all the time except for a trip to France and shorter visits to other cities.