The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
Source
Teresa de Ávila, Su Vida, Chapter XXIX
The trail
Bruno De Imaginum Compositione → editor compares Bruno's invisible light to Teresa's eyes of the soul → Teresa's transverberation → Bernini
The passage
I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire.
He was burned at the stake for seeing it. She was made a saint. Same light. Different institutions. Bernini understood that the rapture and the execution are the same event — the body consumed by something it was not built to contain.
Bernini, marble, 1647–1652. Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome.