Housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the sculpture depicts a scene from the Aeneid, where the hero Aeneas leads his family from burning Troy.

Through his father, the younger Bernini was gaining renown in the higher circles of Rome; Pietro's famous Mannerist sculptures were commissioned even by the Pope.

Those sculptures, especially the antique ones, eventually caught the attention of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who loved arts, money and male physical beauty, and who was the most powerful man in Rome after the Pope.

[2] Bernini's inspiration for the work was the Aeneid, the Latin epic poem which tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan who left his home city and eventually ended up in Italy, where he became a progenitor of the Roman people.

The precise scene depicted is the moment when Aeneas carries his father, the elderly Anchises, and his son Ascanius from Troy, after it has been sacked by the Greek army.

[3] In his hand, Anchises carries a vessel with his ancestors' ashes, on the top of which are two tiny statues of Di Penates, Roman household gods.

Elements of the sixteenth-century sculptor Giambologna occur, particular in how Bernini attempted to construct a sense of movement upwards from the boy Ascansius to his grandfather Anchises.

But the more famous influence is from Raphael's fresco in the Vatican, The Fire in the Borgo, which depicts a similar scene, showing a man carrying his father with his son beside them.