page_title: Monuments in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo
section_title: Right transept
hierarchical_section_title: Monuments in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo / Right transept
caption_attribution_description: English: Neo-Classical funeral monument for Giuseppe Girometti, papal engraver and medalist in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome (after 1852).
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. Ludovico Podocataro
  The wall tomb of Cardinal Ludovico Podocataro is a monumental work of Roman Renaissance sculpture. The Cypriot cardinal served as secretary and physician Pope Alexander VI. The prominent humanist and papal diplomat died on 25 August 1504 at the age of 75 in Rome. He was buried in the favourite church of the Borgias on 7 October with great pomp; the funeral oration was given by his secretary, Fedra Inghirami.
  The location of the tomb in the right transept was originally close to the funerary chapel of the Borgia family, Podocataro's patrons, but this has been demolished long ago.
  The monument is a Renaissance wall tomb in the form of an aedicula. Irregular Corinthian pillars hold the architrave (decorated with little cherubs) and the triangular pediment with the figure of God, the father. The sarcophagus with the recumbent figure of the cardinal (gisant) is placed in the central niche. The sarcophagus rests on lion's paws and it is decorated with floral ornaments, grotesques and a satyr mask on the front. The deceased cardinal wears ecclesiastical robes with a mitre on his head. The lateral pillars are decorated with four allegorical statues in shell-headed niches: Caritas, Fides, Iustitia and Religio. The reliefs on the back wall of the central niche depict a slender Madonna flanked by two praying angels. The unusually high plinth is adorned with a Pietà scene in high relief flanked by two panels showing the symbols of Christ's Passion. The bases of the pillars are decorated with the cardinal's coats-of-arms and two panels with sphinxes, vases, masks and cornucopias.
  Originally the monument had a dual function as an altar and tomb. The Pietà scene decorated the front of the altar table which is now missing. (A 17th-century drawing in the Royal Collection already shows the monument in its present form.) Remnants of paint and gilding are preserved on parts of the monument, especially on the halo of God and the coats-of-arms.
  The monument was probably commissioned by the cardinal between 1497, when he made a donation to the Augustinian church, and 1504, his death. It was perhaps finished after his death by his nephew and heir. The master(s) of the monument are unknown but stylistically it is the work of different groups of sculptors. The architectural composition is traditional and somewhat conservative for the beginning of the 16th century; it follows the models of Andrea Bregno, a highly successful Lombard artist, who died in 1503. The elements which probably belong to Bregno's circle are the relief of God, the Madonna, the gisant and the Virtues, although their quality is different. Another group was responsible for the coats-of-arms and the panels with the symbols of the Passion and also the antique motifs. The Pietà scene belongs to a third stylistic register and it is the work of an inexperienced sculptor under Michelangelesque influences. The tomb is sometimes attributed to Giovanni Cristoforo Romano based on an apocryphal source but this is highly dubious.
  2. Giuseppe Seffer
  A simple marble stele near the Podocataro monument serves as a memorial for Giuseppe Seffer, a chemist and refugee of Turkish persecutions, according to the inscription. He died in 1860 at the age of 54 years. The simple Neo-Classical memorial is decorated with the portrait of the deceased surrounded by an ouroboros (a snake biting its own tail), and crowned with a round pediment.
  3. Carlo Balestra
  The Neo-Classical monument for Carlo Balestra by the altar of the right transept was erected by himself during his lifetime. He also commissioned another monument in the basilica for his deceased wife, Caterina Marini in 1834. According to the inscription Balestra died in 1874 at the ripe old age of 94. The monument is a Greek stele decorated with the fine relief of an angel, holding a trumpet in his hand, and leaning on a funerary urn on the top of a pillar. Above the stele the bust of the deceased is set in a scallop niche.
  4. Giuseppe Girometti
  The funeral monument of Giuseppe Girometti, an internationally renowned medalist, 
caption: Monument of the engraver Giuseppe Girometti.
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