page_title: Cerasi Chapel
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Cerasi Chapel / Description
context_page_description: The Cerasi Chapel or Chapel of the Assumption is one of the side chapels in the left transept of the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. It contains significant paintings by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci, two of the most important masters of Italian Baroque art, dating from 1600-1601.
context_section_description: The oblong shaped chapel consists of a sail-vaulted anteroom and a narrower, barrel-vaulted chancel with the altar. The space is lit dimly by light coming through a lunette window on the back wall. The arched entrance is closed by a balustrade of colourful marble. The focal point of the architecture is the altar. It was built of white and colourful marble in the shape of an aedicule adorned with two large Corinthian columns, two half-pilasters and a broken pediment. The Cerasi coat-of-arms is depicted in the center of the stained glass lunette window. From the outside the chapel is invisible because it is hemmed in by the neighbouring parts of the basilica and a narrow, walled courtyard. The architect skillfully maximized the very small space left between the presbytery (on the right) and the 16th-century Theodoli Chapel (on the left), and created the impression of "a miniature Latin-cross church, complete with transept, domed crossing, and choir. The nave [...] is supplied by the visitor's motion, his sense of direction and focus".
  Caravaggio's dramatically lit and foreshortened paintings are intended to be viewed from the side rather than straight-on, and draw the eye to Carracci's frontally presented Assumption, so that the chapel is aesthetically united despite the very different styles of the two artists. According to Steinberg the light on the Caravaggio paintings comes from the painted heaven on the vault of the anteroom, inhabited by the dove of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, Varriano claims that the "source" of the light seems to be the clerestory window across the transept.
  The chapel is decorated in exuberant Baroque style. The frescos on the short barrel-vault of the chancel depict the Coronation of the Virgin (central medaillon) and the visions of Sts Peter and Paul, Domine quo vadis and Saint Paul Transported to the Third Heaven (side panels), both set in rich gilded stucco frames. The frame of the central medaillon is held by four stucco putti. The paintings were executed by Innocenzo Tacconi, an able assistant of Annibale Carracci, and at least the coronation scene was designed by Carracci himself. This is proved by a detailed preparatory drawing of the figure of Christ in almost the same position as in the executed fresco which was preserved in the Louvre. A far less elaborate sketch of the meeting of Christ and St Peter in front of a city gate, which was made for the Domine quo vadis panel by Carracci, was identified by Hans Tietze in the collection of the Albertina. Baglione identified the right-hand panel as Paul in Third Heaven (mentioned in the Second Letter to the Corinthians) while others believe it represents Christ ordering Paul to leave Jerusalem (Acts 22:17-21) or even a synthesis of the two episodes. The setting of the fresco is celestial with Christ surrounded by angels and reclining on clouds. On the right is the constellation of Ursa Major, perhaps a hidden signature of Annibale, playing on the assonance of the word carro (meaning cart, the constellation is also known as Grande Carro in Italian) and his own surname, Carracci.
  Iconographically the side panels "relate to the Caravaggio paintings in that they manifest the divine cause of what passes below" them. Similarly the Coronation scene is placed above Carracci's Assumption as a direct continuation. The vault forms a celestial zone in close contact with the three famous paintings below. These relationships indicate that the artists worked in a compositional framework conceived by the patron or even more his friend and artistic adviser, Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani. (That Caravaggio received 50 scudi as advance payment from Giustiniani, when he signed the contract to the two paintings, may be a hint to his role.)
  The intrados of the arch between the chancel and the anteroom is decorated with white-gold stucco panels with two putti holding a wreath (top) and angels playing the harp and the flute (above the cornice). The stucco decoration on the pillars is similar but the figurative panels are gilded. The panels are directly related 
caption: Preparatory study for the Coronation of the Virgin on the vault.
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