Podcasts-2 - Rocky Ruggiero

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Rebuilding The Renaissance podcast will explore the development of the art, architecture, culture and history in Italy, from ancient Roman times through the Renaissance. Listeners will develop an understanding of Italy’s role in the development of Western civilization and an ability to appreciate and understand works of art in their historical context.

"No one brings the Renaissance to life better than Rocky"

- Historywrocky

"No one brings the Renaissance to life better than Rocky"

- Treskovich

"No one brings the Renaissance to life better than Rocky"

- Valoreev

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Episodes

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Episode 326 – Rome: Borromini’s Sant’Agnese in Agone (Piazza Navona)

Posted: April 16th, 2025

In 1653, Borromini was asked by Pope Innocent X to take over the building of his family church of Sant’Agnese in Agone in Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy. The result was a revolutionary façade design that tragically was not realized according to Borromini’s plans. ...

Episode 325 – Borromini’s Church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza

Posted: April 9th, 2025

Borromini began construction on another of his architectural masterpieces, the church of Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza in Rome, Italy, in 1642 for Pope Urban VIII. His curvilinear façade, bulging drum, and spiraling lantern are all eye-popping aspects of his design. But it is the extraordinary floor plan ...

Episode 324 – Borromini’s Oratory of the Filippini

Posted: April 3rd, 2025

In 1637, Francesco Borromini designed and began building an oratory – a place for public worship and musical performances – for the followers of St. Phillip Neri, known as the “Filippini.” The façade of this oratory is another of Borromini’s visionary architectural projects with its curve...

Episode 323 – Borromini’s Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (Part II)

Posted: March 26th, 2025

The cloister and façade of the church complex San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (better known in Rome as “San Carlino”) are two of the most beautiful and revolutionary aspects of Borromini’s design for this project. ...

Episode 322 – Borromini’s Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane

Posted: March 19th, 2025

The church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (1634) - better known to the Romans as San Carlino (“little St. Charles”) due to its small size - is one of the most revolutionary in the history of art and introduces the new architectural vision of a Baroque genius named Francesco Borromini....

Episode 317 – Bernini’s Bridge of Angels

Posted: February 12th, 2025

In 1669, at the age of 71, Gian Lorenzo Bernini was commissioned by Pope Clemet IX to renovate the most important pilgrimage bridge in Rome, the Ponte Sant’Angelo. Bernini planned on installing 10 spectacular statues of angels holding the instruments of the passion, only two of which were ultimate...

Episode 316 – Bernini’s “Elephant”

Posted: February 5th, 2025

Completed in 1667 and located in front of the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome, Italy, Bernini’s “Elephant” is a powerful symbol combining Egyptian lore and Roman power. The elephant was designed as an imaginative base for the ancient Egyptian obelisk from the 6th century BCE....

Episode 314 – Bernini’s “Equestrian Monument of King Louis XIV”

Posted: January 22nd, 2025

Although commissioned while Bernini was in Paris in 1665, Bernini did not work on the statue until he returned to Rome. When it was finally delivered to Paris 20 years later, it was immediately rejected by the king, who vowed to destroy it!...

Episode 310 – Bernini’s Sant’Andrea al Quirinale in Rome

Posted: December 26th, 2024

Gian Lorenzo Bernini was commissioned in 1658 by the nephew of the late Pope Innocent X to build the third Jesuit church in Rome. Sant’ Andrea al Quirinale was Bernini’s first church project, and he did not disappoint. The combination of convex and concave forms dressed in polychromed marbles, g...

Episode 309 – Bernini and St. Peter’s Square

Posted: December 18th, 2024

In 1656, Gian Lorenzo Bernini was commissioned by Pope Alexander VII to design and build an appropriate forecourt to the Basilica of St. Peter, known as Piazza San Pietro (“St. Peter’s Square”). The resulting space is one of the greatest triumphs of Baroque architecture, combining a trapezoida...

Episode 308 – Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s “Chair of St. Peter”

Posted: December 11th, 2024

In 1647, Gian Lorenzo began work on a monumental reliquary for an ancient wooden chair (“Cathedra Petri”) thought to have belonged to St. Peter himself. The result was a spectacular ensemble of sculpture, gilded architecture, stained-glass and stucco that dominates the western apse of the grea...

Episode 307 – Bernini’s “Fountain of the Four Rivers”

Posted: December 4th, 2024

In 1651, with the help of the niece of Pope Innocent X, Bernini was able to sneak his design for the “Fountain of the Four Rivers” into the Pamphilj Palace. When Innocent saw it, he realized that despite being excluded from the competition, Bernini was clearly Rome’s greatest artist and deserv...

Episode 306 – Rome: Piazza Navona

Posted: November 27th, 2024

Once the site of an ancient stadium used for athletics (“agones”), the Piazza Navona is arguably Rome’s most famous piazza. It was renovated during the reign of Pope Innocent X in the middle of the 17th century and contains some of Rome’s most spectacular monuments such as Bernini’s “Fo...

Episode 305 – Bernini’s “Ecstasy of St. Teresa” (Part II)

Posted: November 20th, 2024

The central sculpture of the Coronaro Chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, Italy, is one of history’s greatest statues. Bernini depicts the ecstatic heavenly experience of the Spanish nun, which is described in vivid detail in St. Teresa’s autobiography....

Episode 304 – Bernini’s “Ecstasy of St. Teresa” (Part I)

Posted: November 13th, 2024

In 1647, Gian Lorenzo Bernini was commissioned by Cardinal Federigo Coronaro to design a funerary chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, Italy. While the actual sculpture of the saint’s ecstatic experience is simply breathtaking, its architectural context is also magnificent. ...

Episode 302 – Bernini’s Tomb of Pope Urban VIII

Posted: October 30th, 2024

Although commissioned in 1627, at the height of Bernini’s involvement at St. Peter’s, Bernini did not complete the tomb of Pope Urban VIII until 3 years after the pope’s death. Inspired by Michelangelo’s tombs in the New Sacristy in Florence, Italy, the tomb of Urban VIII was also the first ...

Episode 301 – Rome: Bernini’s “Triton Fountain”

Posted: October 23rd, 2024

The spectacular “Triton Fountain” was carved by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1642 for Pope Urban VIII for the piazza named after him – the Piazza Barberini – in the heart of Rome. Made of travertine stone, the fountain depicts the sea god kneeling upon a shell blowing into a conch out of which wa...

Episode 299 – Bernini’s Towers for St. Peter’s

Posted: October 9th, 2024

In 1637, Pope Urban VIII decided to let his superstar artist, Gian Lorenzo Bernini realize a project that had been abandoned 25 years earlier – bell towers at either end of the façade of St. Peter’s in Rome. The project would end up being the greatest failure of Bernini’s long, illustrious ca...

Episode 298 – The Barberini Palace in Rome – Maderno, Bernini, and Borromini

Posted: October 2nd, 2024

In 1627, Pope Urban VIII hired Carlo Maderno to design his new family palace in Rome. When Maderno died two years later, instead of assigning Maderno’s nephew, the visionary architect Francesco Borromini, as architect, the pope gave the job to Gian Lorenzo Bernini. This may have been the beginning...

Episode 296 – Bernini’s Crossing Piers in St. Peter’s

Posted: September 18th, 2024

Under the direction of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, head architect of St. Peter’s, a group of sculptors closely associated with him produced three spectacular statues for the crossing piers of the church. These statues represent the three other most important relics of the Vatican – the largest piece o...

Episode 294 – Maderno’s “Confessio” in St. Peter’s

Posted: September 4th, 2024

Located directly in front of the high altar of St. Peter’s and below Bernini’s magnificent Baldacchino, Maderno’s “Confessio” is an architectural stage that allows the faithful to revere the remains of St. Peter. It consists of a beautiful marble balustrade, nearly 100 perpetually burnin...

Episode 293 – Bernini’s Baldacchino

Posted: August 29th, 2024

Commissioned in 1623 by Pope Urban VIII – whose coat of arms are ubiquitous throughout the monument - Bernini’s Baldacchino was his first large-scale project. Standing over 100ft. tall, the bronze structure marks the central point of the great Basilica of St. Peter over the tomb of the first pop...

Episode 291 – Bernini’s “Apollo and Daphne”

Posted: August 15th, 2024

In 1622, at the age of 24, Gian Lorenzo Bernini began carving his most spectacular sculpture, the “Apollo and Daphne,” for Cardinal Scipione Borghese. The marble statue magically demonstrates the transformation of the nymph Daphne into a laurel tree to escape the advances of the god Apollo....

Episode 290 – Bernini’s “Pluto and Persephone”

Posted: August 7th, 2024

Located in the Borghese Gallery in Rome, Italy, and carved when Bernini was only 23 years old, the spectacular “Pluto and Persephone” depicts the Greek myth which explains the cyclical seasons. Pluto, the god of the underworld, abducts Persephone. Eventually forced to release her, Pluto tricks P...

Episode 287 – The Façade St. Peter’s

Posted: July 17th, 2024

In 1608, the architect Carlo Maderno was commissioned by Pope Paul V to complete the Basilica of St. Peter by building its façade. That façade has been criticized for centuries for looking more like a palace façade than a church façade because of its emphasis on horizontality. This podcast explo...

Episode 282 – Caravaggio’s “Adoration of the Shepherds”

Posted: June 12th, 2024

Painted for the Capuchin fathers at the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Messina, Sicily, in 1609, Caravaggio’s “Adoration of the Shepherds” is a moving spiritual scene within an impoverished and dilapidated setting....

Episode 281 – Caravaggio’s “The Raising of Lazarus”

Posted: June 5th, 2024

After spending some time in Siracusa, Sicily, Caravaggio – still on the run from the Knights of Malta - headed north to the town of Messina. There he painted another of his hauntingly beautiful late works, which, in this case, depicts Christ bringing Lazarus back from the dead. The disturbingly re...

Episode 277 – Caravaggio’s “Sleeping Cupid”

Posted: May 8th, 2024

Caravaggio, still a fugitive from justice, left Naples for Malta in the second half of 1607 most likely because the sensational paintings he produced in Naples were drawing too much attention to him. When he arrived in Malta, he was inducted into the brotherhood and apparently changed his ways. One ...

Episode 272 – Caravaggio’s “David with the Head of Goliath”

Posted: April 3rd, 2024

Painted shortly after Caravaggio killed a man in Rome and was a fugitive from justice, the “David with the Head of Goliath” is today located in the Borghese Gallery in Rome, Italy. The painting was given to Cardinal Scipione Borghese in hopes that he could convince his uncle, Pope Paul V, to par...

Episode 271 – Caravaggio’s “Supper at Emmaus” (2nd Version)

Posted: March 27th, 2024

Located in the Brera Gallery in Milan, Italy, Caravaggio’s 2nd “Supper at Emmaus” was painted in the immediate aftermath of Caravaggio’s murder of Ranuccio Tommasoni on the streets of Rome. A wounded Caravaggio was a fugitive from justice and hiding out from the authorities in the hills sur...

Episode 270 – Caravaggio: Wanted Dead or Alive

Posted: March 20th, 2024

O May 28, 1606, Caravaggio stabbed and killed a man named Ranuccio Tommasoni in Rome, allegedly over an unpaid wager. Discover the details of the homicide that changed Caravaggio’s life forever and turned him into a fugitive from justice....

Episode 269 – Caravaggio’s St. Jerome (Borghese Gallery)

Posted: March 13th, 2024

In 1605, Caravaggio painted an image of St. Jerome for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, and the painting is still located in the Borghese Gallery in Rome, Italy. Caravaggio’s depiction of the Father of the Church is a very quiet and intimate one, where we see a scholar in a sparsely furnished room cons...

Episode 265 – Caravaggio’s “Madonna of Loreto”

Posted: February 14th, 2024

Located in the Augustinian church of Sant ’Agostino in Rome, Italy, the “Madonna of Loreto” is one of Caravaggio’s most beautiful paintings. It was painted for the Cavalletti family in 1604 and depicts a barefoot Virgin Mary (who was modeled from a well-known prostitute) standing in a rundow...

Episode 261 – Caravaggio’s “St. John the Baptist” and the “Taking of Christ”

Posted: January 17th, 2024

After the “Supper at Emmaus,” Caravaggio produced two more paintings for the Mattei brothers. The first was the unorthodox “St. John the Baptist” that today is in the Capitoline Museums in Rome and is a rather unabashed representation of a naked youth embracing a ram and lacking any conventi...

Episode 259 – Caravaggio’s “Conversion of St. Paul”

Posted: January 3rd, 2024

The second painting that Caravaggio produced for the Cerasi Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, Italy, depicts the dramatic conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus. While certainly inspired by Raphael’s and Michelangelo’s earlier interpretations of the same subject, Ca...

Episode 258 – Caravaggio’s “Crucifixion of St. Peter”

Posted: December 27th, 2023

Caravaggio’s interpretation of St. Peter’s particular martyrdom – crucifixion in an upside-down position – for the Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, Italy, is a moving example of realism and physicality. Three executioners struggle to lift the burly fisherman who seems to embr...

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"Rocky is a favorite and one of the best art historians we’ve ever used. He has led our family on occasion where are high school and college kids praised how Rocky made art "interesting" and "relevant", while his interactive style held everyone’s attention"

Michael Chesser

President and Founder Chesser Group Inc., Los Angeles CA

"I can say that Rocky Ruggiero is the best among the very best. I have yet to encounter a more precise, informative and commanding teacher or conductor through the beauty and magnificence of Florence and Italy"

Peter Weller

Actor, Director, Writer, Musician, Scholar

"We recently traveled to Florence with our twin daughters and we wanted them to experience the rich art history of Florence in a more personalized basis. We were grateful that Rocky agreed to this assignment. His Knowledge, love and enthusiasm for the arts was contagious. It was the highlight of our trip!"

Alan L. Rivera

CFO and General Counsel, Millbrook Capital Management, Inc.