The Flood 1648–49 Michel Anguier Soon after the election of Pope Innocent X ( 1644-55), it was decided that the Roman basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano was in urgent need of restoration. The architect chosen in 1646 for its extensive remodeling was Francesco Borromini, who was to complete the project under the supervision of the pope's closest adviser, Msgr. Virgilio Spada, by the Jubilee Year of 1650. Among the main features of Borromini's restructuring of the church was the design of a series of niches along the main nave, and above these a series of marble reliefs or mosaics with scenes

The Flood 1648–49 Michel Anguier Soon after the election of Pope Innocent X ( 1644-55), it was decided that the Roman basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano was in urgent need of restoration. The architect chosen in 1646 for its extensive remodeling was Francesco Borromini, who was to complete the project under the supervision of the pope's closest adviser, Msgr. Virgilio Spada, by the Jubilee Year of 1650. Among the main features of Borromini's restructuring of the church was the design of a series of niches along the main nave, and above these a series of marble reliefs or mosaics with scenes from the Old and New Testament. These scenes were to recall the subjects of the frescoes that had been originally painted along the main nave of the Constantinian basilica. To carry this out, Virgilio Spada commissioned a series of twelve large-scale stucco reliefs. The nine artists chosen by Spada were among the younger sculptors who had been practicing their art in Rome under the aegis of the two leading masters of the city, Bernini and Algardi. Among the six Italians and three Frenchmen, Michel Anguier had the largest share. In 1648 and 1649 he was paid for three stucco reliefs, some figures of angels, and several papal coats of arms, all executed for the basilica. One of the three reliefs was The Flood, and the present terracotta relief, recently discovered, is a sketch-model for it. Another, for the relief The Crucifixion, has been purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum. The carefully thought-out composition and painterly technique of our sketch-model differ in many details from the finished stucco relief, where the group of a man lifting a woman into a tree to seek refuge under a stretched cloth has been replaced by two Ionic capitals and the figures of three men clinging to a crumbling building. Some elements of Anguier's composition-the arch in the distance, the swimming horse-are motifs borrowed from The Flood in Raphael's Vatican Logge and Peruzzi's frescoes at

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