Santa Maria del Popolo
The Parish Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo () is a titular church and a minor basilica in Rome run by the Augustinian order. It stands on the north side of Piazza del Popolo, one of the most famous squares in the city. The church is hemmed in between the Pincian Hill and Porta del Popolo, one of the gates in the Aurelian Wall as well as the starting point of Via Flaminia, the most important route from the north. Its location made the basilica the first church for the majority of travellers entering the city. The church contains works by several famous artists, such as Raphael, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Caravaggio, Alessandro Algardi, Pinturicchio, Andrea Bregno, Guillaume de Marcillat and Donato Bramante.
Santa Maria del Popolo
The main door is more monumental that the others. Its pointed pediment is filled with a sculpture of the "Madonna and the Child" set in a scallop shell. The rim of the niche is decorated with cherubs among six-pointed stars and whiffs of clouds. The frieze has a fine carved decoration of artificial foliage, pecking birds and three putti who are holding torches and oak branches in their hands and carrying bowls of fruit on their heads. The coat-of-arms of Pope Sixtus IV on the lintel is encircled by oak branches. The carvings around the door are the only significant sculptural decorations on the façade and as a whole they summarize the iconographic program of the Sistine rebuilding. The central motif is the Madonna del Popolo surrounded by the symbols of heavenly light and paradisiacal abundance, intertwined with the emblem of the Della Rovere dynasty, and set in a perfectly classical frame.