page_title: Monuments in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo
section_title: North aisle
hierarchical_section_title: Monuments in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo / North aisle
caption_attribution_description: English: The portrait of Stefano Spada on his tomb (after 1563), Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome.
context_page_description: Monuments in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo are tombs and funerary monuments ranging from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Since its rebuilding in the 1470s by Pope Sixtus IV the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo was one of the favourite burial places for members of the papal aristocracy, clergy and literati. Foreign artists were also buried in the church due to its location near their favourite quarter in Rione Campo Marzio. The high number of tombs and monuments makes the basilica a whole museum of sculpture as Jacob Burckhardt phrased it in his famous guide of Italian art in 1855. Besides the tombs in the side chapels and the choir there are many other funeral monuments in the aisles and the transept. During the centuries several monuments were demolished and others were relocated to give place to newer ones.
context_section_description: 1. Stefano Spada
  The monument of Stefano Spada, a young nobleman from Lucca who died at the age of 24 years, suffers from its unfavourable location near the first pillar of the Montemirabile Chapel (originally it stood by the counterfaçade). The white marble aedicula was erected sometime after the death of Spada in 1563. It is decorated with the bust of the deceased in an oval niche and the coat-of-arms of the Spada family (two crossed swords). The exquisitely carved bust with the sad, dreaming expression is an excellent example of Renaissance portraiture. The design and construction was attributed to Domenico Poggini by Grisebach but the authorship remains uncertain.
  2. Maria Flaminia Odescalchi Chigi
  The funerary monument of Princess Maria Flaminia Odescalchi Chigi is sometimes dubbed the "last Baroque tomb in Rome". It is probably the most visually stunning, exuberant and theatrical sepulchral monument in the basilica. It was built in 1772 for the young princess, the first wife of Don Sigismondo Chigi Albani della Rovere, the 4th Prince of Farnese, who died in childbirth at the age of 20. It was designed by Paolo Posi, a Baroque architect who was famous for his ephemeral celebratory architecture, and executed by Agostino Penna. The tomb is located by the pillar between the Chigi and Montemirabile Chapels.
  The monument shows the influence of Bernini's memorial to Maria Raggi in Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Posi used the heraldic symbols of the Chigi and the Odescalchi to celebrate the intertwining of the two princely families. In the lower part of the monument a white marble Odescalchi lion is climbing a mountain of the Chigi; to the right a smoking incense burner alludes to the Odescalchis again. A gnarled bronze oak tree (Chigi) grows from the mountain with a huge red marble robe hanging on its branches. The robe is hemmed with gold and decorated with an epitaph made of golden letters and also the stars of the Chigi and the incense burners of the Odescalchi at the lower part. In the upper part of the tomb a white marble eagle and two angels are carrying the black and white marble portrait of deceased which is set in a richly decorated golden medaillon.
  In the 19th century the monument was dismissed as tawdry. Stendhal called it an "outburst of the execrable taste of the 18th century" in his 1827 Promenades dans Rome.
  3. Agostino Chigi
  On the pillar between the Chigi and the Mellini Chapel is a Late Neo-Classical monument for the memory of Lieutenant Agostino Chigi (1858-1896), the first son of Prince Mario Chigi, who died in the Battle of Adwa in the First Italo-Ethiopian War. It was designed by Adolfo Apolloni in 1915. The shape of the gleaming white marble sepulchre follows the curve of the half-column behind. The stele of the inscription is flanked by two half-pillars with interesting Liberty style capitals of flowers and poppy-heads and two allegorical statues, the personifications of earthly and eternal life; the latter appearing as a serene angel holding up a burning lamp.
  4. Francesco Mantica
  The monument of Francesco Mantica, Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria del Popolo (who died in 1614) is by the first pillar of the nave in front of the Montemirabile Chapel. The Baroque aedicula was built of white and coloured marbles. The base is decorated with the symbol of death, the skull and crossbones, carved from yellow stone. The table of the inscription is framed by Ionic pilasters and surmounted by an angel of white marble. The frame is decorated with strings of bay leaves tied with ribbons and tassels. In the upper part of the sepulchre the bust of deceased is set in a round niche. The tomb is crowned with an arched pediment, the coat-of-arms of the Cardinal and two flaming urns.
  5. Natale Rondinini
  Natale Rondinini served as secretary of Pope Alexander VII until his early death at the age of thirty in 1657. His funeral monument was designed by Domenico Guidi, probably the most prolific sculptor of seicento Rome. It is attached to the second pillar of the nave on the left. The richly decorated Baroque monument is made
caption: The portrait of Stefano Spada
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