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.
Roman Renaissance
In 1503 Julius II was elected pope after the short reign of Pius III. He was chiefly a soldier, and his fame is greatly due to his re-establishment of the Pontifical States and the deliverance of Italy from its subjection to France. But he also gained a reputation as a patron of the arts. Bramante, Raphael, and Michelangelo contributed some of their greatest masterpieces during his time. He laid the cornerstone of the Basilica of St. Peter on 18 April 1506, and united the Vatican with the Belvedere, engaging Bramante to accomplish the project. The famous frescoes of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel and Raphael in the Vatican Halls or "Stanze", the Court of St. Damasus with its loggias, the Via Giulia and Via della Lungara, even the statue of Moses which graces his mausoleum in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, are lasting witnesses of his great love of art.