o this artist, nothing was impossibile, neither the whitening of the Ethiopian, nor the erection of a reassembled obelisk above "nothing" and water, nor the revivification of Pasquino, nor, as Bernini himself put it, the "bending" of marble like wax, or pasta.38 As an athlete of crises, he is able to perpetuate critical turning points in his works—the transformation of flesh, the reverberations of the embodied soul, the last breath of a dying body. Young Bernini carefully staged the crisis of physical pain by holding his arm to a flame, in order to study his expression in a mirror (while his skin first dried, then turned black, as it were) and imitate himself subsequently in the sculptural agony of his patron saint, Lawrence.39 The mature master triumphed on the stage of the permanent crisis that distinguishes the true artist. Or, in Bernini's own words, as recalled by an admiring Paul Fréart de Chantelou:
This was a really interesting passage in my opinion because I think it represents what Bernini was all about and how this project really did prove that he could do the impossible. It also reminds me slightly of Michelangelo studying cadavers and the commitment to accurately representing the human form/spirit (in Berninis case in a very Baroque way.) He put himself in an incredibly difficult situation by attempting to construct something that could support the obelisk and proved that he could be successful. He also took this project in good humor as he dealt with the Pope's demands and mood swings. His situation was also difficult because he dealt with the constant pressure of being compared to Borromini. It seems to me that Bernini tells more of a catholic story in his works than Borromini and ultimately that was the reason for him being commissioned more frequently.