Few churches are such perfect primers on Roman art and architecture. Masters from the Early Renaissance (Pinturicchio, Bramante), High Renaissance (Raphael) and Baroque (Caravaggio, Bernini) exercised their genius in all disciplines here: painting, sculpture, architecture and decoration. It’s also one of the few churches with major chapels still intact, preserving the artworks that together tell a complete story (most Italian chapels have been dismantled, their paintings now in museums). In the Cerasi Chapel, Caravaggio and Caracci collaborated with a frescoist to create a depiction of Peter, Paul and Mary and, on the vault, their connections to Heaven. Bernini altered Raphael’s Chigi Chapel to help clarify the interplay of its art across the small space.
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The People’s ChurchThe ghost of Nero, buried in the Domitia family crypt on the Pincio, terrorized this neighbourhood in the form of demon crows that lived in a cursed tree. Pope Paschal II reassured the locals in 1099 by replacing the tree with a chapel paid for by the people (il popolo). It was enlarged in 1227 and rebuilt in Lombard style in 1472–7. Andrea Bregno may have added the Renaissance façade, and Bernini a Baroque touch to the interior. |
Plan of Santa Maria del Popolo
Façade, Santa Maria del Popolo
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Raphael’s Chigi Chapel
Raphael designed this exquisite chapel for papal banker Agostini Chigi, including the frescoes and niche statues (1519–23).
Pinturicchio’s Adoration
Raphael’s elder contemporary retained more of their teacher Perugino’s limpid Umbrian style in this 1490 work in the della Rovere chapel. Also in the chapel is Cardinal Cristoforo’s tomb sculpted by Francesco da Sangallo (1478), while Domenico’s tomb (1477) features a Madonna with Child by Mino da Fiesole.
Cybo Chapel
Carlo Fontana managed to make this Baroque confection of multicoloured marbles and a Carlo Maratta Immaculate Conception altarpiece blend together in his 1682–7 design.
Sebastiano del Piombo’s Nativity of the Virgin
This altarpiece in the Chigi Chapel (1530–34) is in contrast to the dome’s Neo-pagan themes, the Eternal Father blessing Chigi’s horoscope of planets symbolized by pagan gods.
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