The bust that Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) creates for Francesco I d'Este arrives twelve years after Velazquez's oil portrait. If in the first case the transition of the young monarch towards maturity is immortalized, the bust-portrait created by Bernini is a typical example of a state portrait, aimed at capturing and eternalizing the magnificence of the sovereign. Francesco I d'Este had committed himself to making the courts of Modena and Sassuolo, through a significant program of patronage, two European courts in full title, which in terms of splendor, luxury, and sophistication would be in dialogue with the courts of the major European capitals of the time.