Costanza Piccolomini Bonarelli

On Assumption Day, 15 August 1628, Costanza received a dowry of 45 scudi (the equivalent of annual rent for a modestly sized house) from the Confraternity of San Rocco, funded by Giambattista Borghese, brother of the late Pope Paul V. In 1630, named as la zitella da Viterbo ('the spinster of Viterbo'), she was promised a second dowry of 26 scudi and 44 baiocchi from the Gonfalone Confraternity.

Costanza then married the sculptor, restorer and art dealer Matteo Bonarelli (or Bonucelli) from Lucca, on 16 February 1632 in Rome, in his parish of San Lorenzo in Lucina.

[4] Bernini portrayed Costanza not as a modest, chaste woman but as a passionate lover, with parted lips and wide-open eyes, her chemise falling open in what art historian Simon Schama has called "the sexiest invitation in the history of European sculpture".

[5][8] His mother, Angelica Galante Bernini, wrote to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, the nephew of Pope Urban VIII, pleading for help "taming" him.

[7][9] The Pope subsequently pardoned him in view of his impending marriage,[5] but Costanza was not "given back to her husband" until 7 April 1639, after she wrote a pleading letter to the governor of the house.

[10] After returning to her husband, Costanza pursued a successful business as a merchant and art dealer, including during the pontificate of the Sienese Alessandro VII Chigi.

[12] Matteo Bonarelli died in 1654; in his will, signed in 1649, he designated as his sole heir "Signora Costanza Piccolomini mia dilettissima moglie" ('my most beloved wife').