page_title: Cybo-Soderini Chapel (Santa Maria del Popolo)
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Cybo-Soderini Chapel (Santa Maria del Popolo) / Description
caption_attribution_description: Português: Santa Maria del Popolo - Rome
context_page_description: The Cybo-Soderini Chapel or the Chapel of the Crucifixion is a side chapel of the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. Its most important works of art are the frescos of a Flemish artist, Pieter van Lint from c. 1636-37.
context_section_description: The crucifix
  The wooden crucifix above the main altar was first mentioned in 1530 as the imago Crucifixi. The origin and authorship of the sculpture is uncertain. Barbara Fabjan assumed that it was produced in the orbit of Matteo Civitali, a Tuscan artist active in the second half of the 15th century. "The face appears to be a sort of coarse and rustic but intensely dramatic replica of the Eucharistic Christ at Lammari, a late work by Civitali executed between 1496 and 1501", she concluded. Fabjan supposed that the statue was commissioned by Teodorina Cybo in a period when Tuscan artistic influences were strong in Rome.
  The statue became an object of great devotion. Tradition says that St Philip Neri spent a lot of time in front of it in prayer, while Pope Gregory XIII granted privileges to the altar in 1576. The justification for the 1636 restoration of the chapel was "the reverence felt by the whole Roman people" towards the statue, and the entire painted decoration aimed to underscore its importance. The current wooden Corinthian aedicule which frames the statue comes only from the 19th century but a similar structure was most probably created after 1636 because the decoration around the windows takes this into account. The sculpture was made of poplar wood covered in canvas, stuccoed and painted. The crucifix was restored in 1922 when the arms and the feet were replaced, the cross is modern.
  Frescos
  The side walls are articulated by painted Corinthian pilasters and the splays of the windows are decorated with monochrome trophies including the instruments of the Passion. The archivolt of the entrance arch is decorated with coffers and rosettes. Two portraits in oval medallions on the sides of the altar represent Innocenzo Cybo and his wife (the male head is heavily damaged). The painted architecture, which is among the finest from the period in Rome, was executed by Pietro Paolo Drei.
  Two large frescos by a Flemish artist, Pieter van Lint depict scenes from the legend of the True Cross: on the left side the Invention of the True Cross, on the right the Exaltation of the Cross. The first painting shows the moment when the True Cross was identified: three crosses were found on the site of the Calvary by Saint Helena and the body of a dead man was brought to the place. The True Cross restored the dead to life. The scene is set in a bucolic landscape with the city of Jerusalem on the left and a small shrine with the statue of Apollo on the right. The second painting shows Emperor Heraclius when he brought back the cross to Jerusalem in 629. He tried to enter the city carrying the cross but he was stopped until he dismounted his palfrey, and took off his imperial robes and boots. The gate of Jerusalem closely resembles the original Porta del Popolo outside of the basilica giving the impression that the procession is arriving on Via Flaminia. The richly decorated stucco frames of the paintings are crowned with the Soderini coat-of-arms.
  The Invention of the True Cross was copied by another Flemish artist, the engraver Pieter de Bailliu. He was also working in Rome around 1636 but his print was only published through the support of Judocus Gillis, the abbot of the Cistercian abbey of St. Bernard near Antwerp in the 1650s. A preparatory study for the same fresco was sold in Cologne in 1892.
  The frescos on the vault depict the Angels with the Symbols of the Passion. In the five main field brightly winged angels hold objects associated with the Passion of Christ: the purple robe of mockery and the crown of thorns; the cross; the Veronica; the Holy Tunic; the Holy Lance and the Holy Sponge on a reed. In the two narrow fields on the sides there are chubby putti reading a book and playing on musical instruments. The fresco in the central oculus shows God the Father surrounded by cherubs. A small coat-of-arms of the Cybo family survived on the vault as part of the decoration. A preparatory study of an angel by Pieter van Lint is conserved in Rotterdam.
  There are four Prophets in the lunettes while the central lunette is filled with
caption: The crucifix
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