Apollo and Daphne (Bernini) judgment, taste, and knowledge of that age", going on to criticize the appearance of Apollo for being too like a shepherd and not enough like a god. More recent historians have been much more positive. Robert Torsten Petersson calls it "an extraordinary masterpiece ... suffused with an energy that works out of the tips of the laurel leaves and Apollo's hand and drapery." Apollo and Daphne (Bernini) Apollo and Daphne is a life-sized Baroque marble sculpture by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, executed between 1622 and 1625. Housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the work depicts the climax of
Daphnis growth of vegetation in the spring, and its sudden withering away beneath the scorching summer sun. Daphnis was also the name of a member of the group of Prophetic sisters, known as the Thriae. Longus's legend of "Daphnis and Chloe" describes two children who grow up together and gradually develop mutual love, eventually marrying after many adventures. Daphnis In Greek mythology, Daphnis (; , from , "daphne", "Bay Laurel") was a Sicilian shepherd who was said to be the inventor of pastoral poetry. According to tradition, he was the son of Hermes and a nymph, despite which Daphnis himself was