page_title: Chigi Chapel
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Chigi Chapel / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Chigi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, drawing by unknown Italian artist from the workshop of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, c. 1655, in the collection of the Smith College Museum of Art
context_page_description: The Chigi Chapel or Chapel of the Madonna of Loreto is the second chapel on the left-hand side of the nave in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. It is the only religious building of Raphael which has been preserved in its near original form. The chapel is a treasure trove of Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and is ranked among the most important monuments in the basilica.
context_section_description: In 1507 Julius II granted assent to the acquisition of a chapel in the church to his friend, the wealthy Sienese banker and financier of the Roman Curia, Agostino Chigi. Chigi had bought the second chapel in the north aisle, and its dedication was changed by a papal bull on 3 December 1507 from Saints Sebastian, Roch and Sigismund to the Madonna of Loreto, whose shrine Agostino was passionately devoted, and Saints Augustine and Sebastian. The bull also stated that the chapel was meant to be a mausoleum for Agostino and his heirs, "wishing to trade earthly things to heavenly and transitory to eternal by fortunate exchange."
  The chapel was most probably rebuilt from scratch with Raphael as the architect. A ground plan attributed to the artist was preserved in the Uffizi in Florence, it was presumably drawn at the beginning of the work around 1512. An inscription on the dome marked the completion of the mosaics in 1516. In the following years Lorenzetto worked on the architectural decoration of the chapel and the statues under Raphael's patronage. The main iconographic theme of the chapel was the Resurrection; and visually it represented a marriage between Christianity and classical antiquity.
  Agostino Chigi was buried in the half-finished chapel on 11 April 1520, and Raphael himself had died a few days before Agostino. Agostino Chigi's widow, Francesca Ordeasca commissioned the mosaicist, Luigi da Pace on 31 May 1520 to create another set of mosaics for the planned decoration of the tambour and the spandrels, but she died in the same year on 11 November. The simultaneous death of the artist, the patron and the patron's widow stymied work on the chapel. Agostino's younger brother, Sigismondo Chigi commissioned Lorenzetto to go on with Raphael's plan in 1521. But the work advanced slowly and the death of Sigismondo in 1526 left everything in limbo. Vasari records in his Lives, speaking about the statues of Jonah and Elijah:
  "... the heirs of Agostino, with scant respect, allowed these figures to remain in Lorenzetto's workshop where they stood for many years. [...] Lorenzo, robbed for those reasons of all hope, found for the present that he had thrown away his time and labor."
  The main altar-piece, a mural depicting the birth of the Virgin by Sebastiano del Piombo was begun in 1530 but it was left unfinished in 1534. Work on the chapel resumed in 1548 when Francesco Salviati was commissioned to create frescoes on the drum and the spandrels, although Raphael intended mosaics on these surfaces. He also completed the mural above the main altar. In 1552 Lorenzo Chigi paid his debt towards the heirs of Lorenzetto, and the two statues were finally placed in the chapel. After this the chapel was unveiled for the first time in 1554.
  After Lorenzo Chigi's death and his burial in the chapel in 1573 the family disappeared from Rome, and their chapel became abandoned. In 1624 the funeral monument of Cardinal Antoniotto Pallavicini was moved into the chapel from the crossing and placed in front of the left wall by the friars. Sigismondo Chigi's great-grandson, Fabio made his first visit to the neglected chapel in 1626. He found it in a state of serious disrepair and complained about the presence of the Pallavicini monument in a letter to his uncle. (Later he managed to transfer this tomb to the nearby baptistery but it was still in the chapel in 1629.) Fabio Chigi regained the ownership after a three year long litigation with the Augustinians. Although the debate was settled in 1629, due to Chigi's long absence from Rome as he pursued his ecclesiastical career, the chapel remained neglected in the next decades.
  More important changes were carried out by Gian Lorenzo Bernini between 1652 and 1655. The works began in earnest when Fabio Chigi became cardinal-priest of the basilica. Bernini finished the pyramids, laid the present floor, raised the altar, slightly enlarged the windows, renewed the lead roof, regilded and cleaned the dome. Painted wood panels by Raffaello Vanni were placed in the lunettes above the tombs. In 1656 and in 1661 B
caption: Drawing from the workshop of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, c. 1655
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