Bernini carved a jab at his rival's building

A closer look

When master sculptors hold a grudge, they literally carve it into stone. Gian Lorenzo Bernini heavily despised his architectural rival Francesco Borromini. When commissioned to create a statue near a building Borromini designed, Bernini deliberately sculpted a figure raising its hands in terror, supposedly recoiling from the 'awful' architecture directly across the street. The ultimate form of permanent, heavy-duty shade.