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.
Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls
Pope Leo XII issued a document "Ad plurimas" encouraging donations for reconstruction. It was re-opened in 1840, and reconsecrated in 1855 in the presence of Pope Pius IX and fifty cardinals. The basilica was reconstructed identically to what it had been before, utilizing all the elements which had survived the fire. The complete decoration and reconstruction, in charge of Luigi Poletti, took longer, however, and many countries made their contributions. Muhammad Ali Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt sent pillars of alabaster, the Emperor of Russia the precious malachite and lapis lazuli of the tabernacle. The work on the principal façade, looking toward the Tiber, was completed by the Italian Government, which declared the church a national monument. On 23 April 1891 the explosion of the gunpowder magazine at Forte Portuense destroyed the stained glass windows.