Monuments in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo

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.Jacob Burckhardt: Der Cicerone. Eine Anleitung zum Genuss der Kunstwerke Italiens, Schweighauser'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Basel, 1855, p. 615 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.

Counterfaçade

1. Maria Eleonora Boncompagni Ludovisi

To the right of the entrance, on the counterfacade, is the wall tomb of Maria Eleonora I Boncompagni, the sovereign Princess of Piombino. The princess died in 1745 after visiting a hospital. Her tomb was designed by Domenico Gregorini in 1749.Claudio De Dominicis: Carlo De Dominicis, architetto del Settecento romano (Roma, 2006) p. 74

The funeral monument has typically macabre, late Baroque details. The base includes a winged dragon, symbol of the Boncompagni family. The tablet of the epitaph is made of pietre dure. The inscription is surmounted by an allegory of Time (skull in wreath with wings), the coat-of-arms of the Principality of Piombino and two personifications (Charity and Humility). The tablet is set in a white marble frame with a conch in the lower part and a gable at the top with a shell, two flaming torches and another winged skull.

2. Giovanni Battista Gisleni

The tomb of Giovanni Battista Gisleni, an architect and stage designer who worked for the Polish royal court during 1630–1668, is another rather macabre funeral monument. It is set between a wooden booth and a stone half-column on the right side of the counterfaçade. The memorial was designed and installed by the architect himself in 1670 two years before his death.

The upper part of the monument is a stone tablet with a long inscription and the portrait of the deceased in a tondo which was painted by a Flemish artist, Jacob Ferdinand Voet. There is a painted canopy which is supported by angels on the wall (one of them holding an hourglass, the symbol of Time). The lower part contains a shrouded skeleton, clutching his breast, as he peers through an iron grill window. The stone frame of the window is decorated with a coat-of-arms and two bronze medallions. The left one shows a tree with its branches cut but sprouting new shoots and containing a caterpillar spinning its cocoon, while the right one shows the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a moth. These are the symbols of death and resurrection. The inscriptions convey the same message: In nidulo meo moriar ("In my nest I die" i.e. in the city of Rome) and Ut phoenix multiplicabo dies ("As a phoenix I multiply my days"). There are two enigmatic inscriptions on the upper and lower part of the monument: Neque hic vivus and Neque illic mortuus ("Neither living here, nor dead there").

On this tomb the skeleton is not the personification of Death as in other Baroque tombs but a representation of the deceased (the transi image) on his way towards the resurrection and due to this "death became a symbol for life".Kathleen Cohen: Metamorphosis of a Death Symbol: The Transi Tombs in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance (University of California Press, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London) p. 185

3. Samuel Rafael Globic

Samuel Rafael Globic was a young Czech painter who died in Rome in 1665. His small monument is hidden in the corner of the counterfaçade near the wooden entrance booth. Its cryptic inscription remains an unsolved mystery. A putto is carrying the family coat-of-arms and a rippling drapery. The wavy lines of the Latin inscription declare: "This stone is the centre, the periphery of which was a life, that the noble Samuel Raphael Globicz de Buczina of Prague in Bohemia once orbited in this turbulent circle of living, whose parent was a royal surveyor, who unhappily discovered the squaring of the circle [infelicissime quadraturam circuli invenit], when his precious son was buried under this square tombstone in 1665 on 18 August at the age of 25 years."

The parent was Samuel Globic, royal surveyor of Bohemia, who probably designed the monument for his son. Nobody knows the exact meaning of the most enigmatic part of the epitaph which refers to squaring the circle.

4. Cristiana Duglioli Angelelli

The monument of Marquise Cristiana Duglioli Angelelli is set in the wall of the counterfaçade. This noble woman from Bologna was the widow of Senator Andrea Angelelli. After her husband's murder in 1643 she settled in Rome where she patronized the leading artists of the era. The marquise, who moved in the highest circles of the Roman society, established a famous art collection in her palace. She died in 1669 leaving some precious relics and alms to the monastery.

The monument is a simple slab of white marble in a grey marble frame. It is flanked by slim volutes and crowned with a strong architrave. The marble coat-of-arms of the Duglioli family rest on top of the lintel.

5. Vincenza Danesi

The monument consists of a mixtilinear cartouche with scrolls, a black marble niche for the portrait of the deceased, flanked by two flaming stucco torches, and the coat-of-arms. The niche is empty but the presence of a small plinth reveals that originally it contained a bust. The noble lady died in 1682 at the age of 68. The monument was erected by her son, Bernardino Petrinochi for the "dearest mother" in 1683. The epitaph claims that "her premature death was caused not by serious illness but by someone's neglect of his art".

6. Vincenzo Bonadies

"A young man of great hopes and sweet manners", Vincenzo Bonadies was buried in the church in 1677. His small monument is similar to that of Samuel Rafael Globic, hidden in a nook in the other side of the counterfaçade. The chubby Baroque angel is holding a rippling drapery with the epitaph and the coat-of-arms of the family. It was erected by the youngster's grieving father, Baldassare Bonadies.

7. Félix Boisselier

The stele of Félix Boisselier is set in the wall of the counterfaçade. The French historical painter was a pensionary of the French Academy in Rome and died at the age of 34 years in 1811. The monument was erected by "his comrades whose hearts were filled with pain at his premature death", according to the French inscription. The stone slab is decorated with Boisselier's classicising portrait in relief.

A tablet on the counterfaçade serves as a memorial to another Frenchman, Philibert Hugonet, the Cardinal of Mâcon, who was a prominent member in the court of Burgundy and the Roman Curia in the 1470s. He was buried in the church in 1484 but left without a funeral monument. The tablet was placed on the wall by Colonel Hugon d'Augicourt, Chief of Staff of the French division in Rome, on 20 September 1855.

North aisle

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.Ulrich Middeldorf: Römische Porträtbusten der Gegenreformation (review), The Art Bulletin, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Mar., 1938), p. 116

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.Stendhal: Promenade dans Rome, Vol. 1 (Editions Jérôme Millon, 1993), p. 120

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