Italian · Late Baroque · Rococo
Pietro Bracci
b. 16 June 1700, Rome — d. 1773, Rome
Pietro Bracci (1700–1773) was a Roman late Baroque sculptor best known for the colossal marble Oceanus at the center of the Trevi Fountain and for papal tombs in Saint Peter's Basilica.
1 work in the collection
Works by Pietro Bracci
Pietro Bracci was one of the busiest sculptors in eighteenth-century Rome, the last generation to work in the grand manner descended from Bernini. He carved the central figure of the Trevi Fountain, Oceanus, the bearded Titan of the sea who strides out of the fountain's great niche on a shell-shaped chariot.
Life in brief
Bracci was born in Rome in 1700. He trained in painting with Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari and in sculpture with Camillo Rusconi, the leading Roman sculptor of the early eighteenth century. He worked almost entirely in Rome, for popes, cardinals and princely families, and died there in 1773.
Key works
His reputation rests on monuments in the city's great churches. He carved the figures for the tomb of Pope Benedict XIII (1734) in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, designed by Carlo Marchionni; the monument to Maria Clementina Sobieska, wife of the Stuart claimant James Francis Edward Stuart, in Saint Peter's (1742), with its mosaic portrait held aloft by Charity; the polychrome tomb of Cardinal Giuseppe Renato Imperiali in Sant'Agostino (1741); and the tomb of Pope Benedict XIV in Saint Peter's (1763–70), finished with his pupil Gaspare Sibilia.
The Trevi Fountain
The Trevi was designed by Nicola Salvi, begun in 1732 and completed after Salvi's death by Giuseppe Pannini. The sculptor Giovanni Battista Maini had made a plaster model for the central figure but died before the marble was begun, and Bracci took over the commission. He carved Oceanus and the two tritons with their sea horses, one rearing and one calm, in the years before the fountain's inauguration in 1762. Oceanus stands with drapery billowing behind him like a sail, one arm stretched commandingly over the water: Bracci's skill lies in drapery cut so deeply that it throws shadows like those of Bernini's fountains a century earlier.
Where to see his work
The Trevi Fountain, Saint Peter's Basilica, Santa Maria sopra Minerva and Sant'Agostino, all in Rome. Explore more in Baroque Art and Famous Sculptures.
Questions & answers
Who carved the statue in the Trevi Fountain?
The central statue of Oceanus in the Trevi Fountain was carved in marble by the Roman sculptor Pietro Bracci, based on a model by Giovanni Battista Maini. Bracci also carved the tritons and sea horses below. The side statues of Abundance and Salubrity are by Filippo della Valle.
Is the Trevi Fountain statue Neptune or Oceanus?
It is Oceanus, the Titan who personified the great river encircling the world in Greek myth. The figure is often mistaken for Neptune, god of the sea, because of his shell chariot and sea horses, but the fountain's program identifies him as Oceanus.
What else did Pietro Bracci make?
Bracci made several major tombs in Rome, including those of Pope Benedict XIII in Santa Maria sopra Minerva and Pope Benedict XIV in Saint Peter's, and the monument to Maria Clementina Sobieska in Saint Peter's Basilica, with its mosaic portrait.