PIAZZA NAVONA

Santa Maria della Pace

In 1482 Pope Sixtus IV built St. Maria della Pace on an earlier construction and a medallion immured in the side of the church commemorates Sixtus IV.
In 1656 Pope Alexander VII Chigi commissioned Pietro da Cortona to redesign the church and Pietro made one of his masterpieces.

Inside is strictly forbidden to photograph so we can make only a brief description.

Immediately to the right you see the famous Chigi chapel, above the arch of the chapel, Raphael painted the sibyls, chatted sybils because Michelangelo accused Raphael of having spied while he frescoed the Sistine Chapel (back to Sixtus IV), and then to have painted the sibyls copying him.
Agostino Chigi, the Pope's banker, had commissioned the work to Raphael, but when he had to pay he asked for an appointed expert, because the price requested by Raphael seemed too high. The expert (surprise was Michelangelo himself), gave reason to Raphael and Agostino Chigi had to pay.

Over a century later, another Chigi, Pope Alexander VII placed inside the chapel the high-relief bronze of Cosimo Fancelli with the sculptures on either side of S. Catherine, still by Fancelli and S. Bernardino by Ercole Ferrata.

The second chapel on the right is the Cesi Chapel, designed by Antonio Sangallo the Younger, in which there are two frescoes by Rosso Fiorentino (I think they are the only paintings of Rosso found in Rome).

The choir and the main altar are by Carlo Maderno.

In the Ponzetti chapel, the first left, frescoes by Baladassarre Peruzzi.

In the chapel Olgiati, second left, the Baptism of Jesus is by Orazio Gentileschi.

From the church you can go to the cloister which, besides being a masterpiece, is also the first Roman work of Bramante.
This work is a sort of anthology of ancient architecture, since Bramante built the cloister by overlapping the four orders of antiquity: Tuscanico, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian.