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
Pope Eugene IV continued in this vein in Rome, commissioning the Florentine, Antonio Averulino, known as Filarete (1400-1469) to make the two bronze doors, or imposts, of St Peter's Basilica, completed in 1445. The six panels show Jesus the Savior and Mary enthroned, St. Paul with the sword, and St. Peter, who is giving the keys to the kneeling Pope Eugene IV. The two lowest panels show St. Paul sentenced by Nero, and the martyrdom of St. Paul. The bas-reliefs between the framed panels show scenes from the pontificate of Eugene IV, and representatives at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, summoned in 1438 to reunite the Churches of the East and of the West.