Universitätsbibliothek HeidelbergUniversitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
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THE CEILING OF THE CHOIR IN STA- MA- DEL POPOLO
IN ROME.
PINTURICCHIO—1506.

PLATE XIII.
The exterior of the church of Sta. Maria del Popolo gives a better
promise than most of the exteriors of the sacred buildings in Rome.
The great predilection which the Popes Sixtus IY. and Julius II. had for
this church, raised it into such esteem that many of the distinguished
courtiers and other personages of that time chose it for their last resting-
place. Owing to these circumstances this church has become a museum
of art. Raphael, Pinturicchio, and Sebastian del Piombo adorned it with
paintings and mosaics ;1 Sansovino,2 the Rosellini,3 and Raphael4 with
sculptures ; Guglielmo da Marsiglia, with some of the finest glass-paint-
ings ; while the carvings, tarsias,5 and all the other appliances of art, are
of equal excellence in their kind. The paintings of Pinturicchio, which
have here furnished one of the richest of the pages of this work, form
the beautiful decorations of the vault above the high altar. This vault
was painted about 1506 : the centre of it is occupied by the Coronation of
the Virgin, to whom the church is dedicated. Very beautiful are the four
medallions with half-figures of the Evangelists, between which four of the
1 I Mosaici della Capella Ghigiana incisi da L. Grüner. Roma, 1839, fo.
* Andrea Condncci detto del Sansovino.
3 Bernardo and Antionio Gambarelli, called i Rosellini.
4 The statue of Jonas in the Capella Ghigiana. Passavant—Raphael, &c. t. i. p. 249, t. ii. 437—and
Giov. Martinelli le cose maravigliose della citta di Roma, 1589.
5 Tarsia or opera di commesso, inlaid work, a kind of wood mosaic, an art, according to Vasari,
(I. Introduzione, c. xxxi.,) brought to perfection by Pra Giovanni Veronese.
 
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