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
Palace of Daphne Palace of Daphne The Palace of Daphne () was one of the major wings of the Great Palace of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire (modern Istanbul, Turkey). According to George Codinus, it was named after a statue of the nymph Daphne, brought from Rome. The exact layout and appearance of the palace is unclear, since it lies under the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, and the only surviving evidence comes from literary sources. Bardill, however, has suggested that the peristyle with mosaics adjoining an apsed hall, excavated by the Walker Trust excavations in 1935-7 and 1952-4, could be the Augusteus