Visio Divina · Wednesday, April 29, 2026
The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
Gian Lorenzo Bernini · 1647–1652
Why It Matters
Bernini stages a mystical event as theater: Teresa swoons backward beneath an angel's gilded arrow, while concealed windows pour real daylight along bronze rays. The chapel is engineered to make heavenly intervention legible to the senses — a sculptural argument that the body is not opposed to the spirit's transport.
Context & History
The work draws verbatim from Teresa of Ávila's own account in her autobiography, in which she describes a divine encounter so intense that 'the soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God.' Bernini's audacity — depicting religious experience with such carnal frankness — has provoked admiration and unease for nearly four centuries, and remains the high-water mark of Baroque sacred art.