After the extraordinary success of Caravaggio 2025, from February 12 to June 14, 2026, the National Galleries of Ancient Art will present the major exhibition Bernini and the Barberini in the halls of Palazzo Barberini, curated by Andrea Bacchi and Maurizia Cicconi: an investigation into the special relationship between Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Maffeo Barberini, his first and most decisive patron, elected pontiff in 1623 with the name Urban VIII.

The exhibition will be supported by the Main Partner Intesa Sanpaolo and under the patronage of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in the Vatican, offering a unique opportunity to rethink the birth of the Baroque through the privileged lens of the personal and intellectual dialogue between Bernini and Pope Urban VIII, key figures in the affirmation of the artistic language of their time. The exhibition coincides with the four hundredth anniversary of the consecration of the new Basilica of St. Peter (1626), one of the highest moments of Roman Baroque and Bernini's activity.

The focal point of the exhibition is the investigation of Maffeo Barberini's role as the true discoverer of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, a recognition already highlighted by scholars such as Cesare D'Onofrio, Francis Haskell, and Irving Lavin, and crucial for the development of Bernini's language and for the monumental enterprises carried out in St. Peter's during the pontificate of Urban VIII.