Italian Baroque art Milan. The city hosted numerous formidable artists, architects and painters of that period, such as Caravaggio. Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) was the leading sculptor of his day and the favorite artist of several popes and their relatives, who gave him important commissions. His ‘Apollo and Daphne’ in the Villa Borghese in Rome illustrates how he could precisely capture in white marble the dramatic moment when Daphne, fleeing the pursuing sun god, realizes she is metamorphosing into a laurel tree. This ability to make expressive dramatic narratives in sculpture can also be seen in his Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (1645–52), created
Aetna (nymph) Aetna (nymph) Aetna (Greek: , "Aἴtnē") was in Greek and Roman mythology a Sicilian nymph and, according to Alcimus, a daughter of Uranus and Gaia, or of Briareus. Stephanus of Byzantium says that according to one account Aetna was a daughter of Oceanus. Simonides said that she had acted as arbitrator between Hephaestus and Demeter respecting the possession of Sicily. By Zeus or Hephaestus she became the mother of the Palici. Mount Aetna in Sicily was believed to have derived its name from her, and under it Zeus buried Typhon, Enceladus, or Briareus. The mountain itself was believed to be