Santa Maria del Popolo
The architect or architects of this innovative project remain unknown due to a lack of contemporary sources. Giorgio Vasari in his "Lives" attributed all the important papal projects in Rome during Sixtus IV to a Florentine, Baccio Pontelli including the basilica and monastery of Santa Maria del Popolo. Modern researchers deemed this claim highly dubious and proposed other names among them Andrea Bregno, a Lombard sculptor and architect whose workshop certainly received important commissions in the basilica. The fundamental differences between the façade and the interior suggest that maybe more than one architect was working on the building.
Cybo Chapel (Santa Maria del Popolo)
The present chapel was built by Cardinal Alderano Cybo (1613-1700) to glorify the achievements of his family, the dukes of Massa and princes of Carrara. Construction works began in 1682 and ended five years later. The chapel was consecrated on 19 May 1687. The cardinal commissioned three painters, Pier Francesco Garoli, Luigi Garzi and Carlo Maratta to record his visit in the new chapel on a painting which is preserved in the Museo di Roma ("Interior of the Cybo Chapel", 1687). The entrance arch was decorated by the ducal arms of the Cybo Malaspina dynasty made of polychrome marble.