Santa Maria del Popolo
Soon after its transfer to the prestigious Lombard Congregation Santa Maria del Popolo was reconstructed between 1472 and 1477 on the orders of Pope Sixtus IV. This was part of the ambitious urban renovation program of the pope who presented himself as "Urbis Restaurator" of Rome. The medieval church was entirely demolished and a new three-aisled, Latin cross shaped basilica was built with four identical chapels on both sides, an octagonal dome above the crossing and a tall Lombard style bell-tower at the end of the right transept. The result of this reconstruction was an early and excellent example of Italian Renaissance architecture in Rome. In spite of the many later changes the basilica essentially kept its Sistine form until today.
Palazzo dei Convertendi
In 1937, during the construction of the Via della Conciliazione, the palace was demolished, and then reconstructed until 1941 west of Palazzo Torlonia. The relocation was supervised by Giuseppe Momo, the "court architect" of Pius XI (r. 1922–39), who after 1929 reshaped the new Vatican City. Momo collaborated in the reconstruction with Marcello Piacentini and Attilio Spaccarelli (the designers of via della Conciliazione). The architects moved the palace to an area that, until the mid-19th century, had been occupied by the houses of Soderini, an early Renaissance complex. The accuracy of the reconstruction allows the consideration of the rebuilt Palazzo dei Convertendi not as a new building, but as another phase in the centuries-old life of the edifice.