Gianlorenzo Bernini's Altieri Chapel possesses an aesthetic splendour that continues to captivate modern viewers. However, despite the recent publication of Shelly Karen Perlove and Giovanni Careri's studies on this subject, its unique manner of signification continues to be elusive. In the former case, the author's dependence on a melange of seventeenth-century religious notions reduces Bernini's choice of imagery to mere theological illustration. On the other hand, Careri affirms the originality of the chapel, but his over reliance on a heuristic comparison with film montage limits his appreciation of the viewer's role in this aesthetically charged space. / The present study strikes a balance between its own contemporary subjectivity and Bernini's historicity, locating the chapel's meaning making capacity in a hermeneutic oscillation between both its constituent elements and the participatory beholder. The result is the recognition of a unique artistic statement, which avers the fundamental commonality between several post-Tridentine liturgical practices. The salvific efficacy of these tenets is asserted by an aesthetic signification of the divine presence which lies behind them. The spectator is drawn into a mimetic world, suffused with Baroque Catholic ideology, and shown that Church doctrine is backlit with the radiance of ultimate truth. Of course, seventeenth-century viewing practices cannot be recreated, just as the feeling engendered by this artistic experience is beyond the descriptive powers of this or any other text. Nevertheless, it is possible to provide a guide to the spiritual references in Bernini's microcosm, for, while secular, modern viewers may no longer see with Baroque eyes, perhaps they can appreciate what those eyes saw.

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