An unfinished, much damaged marble sculpture of a curly-haired youth, lacking both arms and both legs below the knee, came to light at the beginning of this century. Its owner, the Florentine dealer Stefano Bardini, gave it an attribution to Michelangelo in the lavish catalogue he prepared for an auction held at Christie's in London in the Spring of 1902. After the auction the sculpture disappeared from view.

Although the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century published sources attribute the high altar of S. Carlo ai Catinari, Rome (Fig.33), to Martino Longhi,' the attribution has remained controversial, because it was contradicted by the documents known hitherto. Indeed, in his will of 26th March 1639, Filippo Colonna states that work on the altar, financed by him, was already underway and was to be continued under the direction of Francesco Peparelli and Girolamo Rainaldi.2 Consequently, some scholars - taking as a terminus ante quem for the completion of the altar a chirograph of Alexander VII, dated 17th April 1660 showing the structure already in situ (Fig.32) - have suggested that Longhi's intervention was limited to completing the work, modifying the initial project in the upper part.3 Other scholars, by contrast, following the sources, attribute the whole work to Longhi, and date his intervention to the 1650s.

Borromini's S. Ivo alla Sapienza is not exactly an under- interpreted building. Almost from the beginning, perhaps with a malicious nudge from Borromini himself, the plan was interpreted as an image of the Barberini bee. The star of Solomon entered the picture with a print of 1720 and soon made itself indispensable: it is invoked in a broad range of modern interpretations that revolve around the concept of the Domus Sapientiae. The sapiential literature of the Old Testament, especially the verses from Proverbs 9 inscribed on Borromini's presentation drawing, have been used to shed light on the design, but so has Ripa's Iconologia, Prudentius's Psychomachia, Fludd's pansophistic writings, and the ora- tions of Roman seminarians delivered on the feast of S. Ivo (though in another church).