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.
Renaissance Papacy
Pope Julius II become known as "the Warrior Pope" for his use of military force to increase the territory and property of the papacy. He continued the consolidation of power in the Papal States and continued the process of rebuilding Rome physically. His most prominent project among many was the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica.