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.
Montemirabile Chapel (Santa Maria del Popolo)
The funeral monument of Cardinal Antoniotto Pallavicini on the left wall was made by the Bregno workshop. It was originally set up in the apse of the Old St. Peter's Basilica but a Dutch traveller, Aernout van Buchel glimpsed it in 1587 among various other discarded tombs and sculptures in the nave due to the ongoing demolition of the ancient church. According to the inscription on the sarcophagus "always having death in mind, Antoniotto Cardinal of S. Prassede, erected [this tomb] for himself while still alive, in the year 1501". The monument was restored and transferred to the choir of the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo by his great-nephews in 1596 to which date the longer inscription on the base belongs. At the same time the Pallavicini family erected another tomb in the right aisle for a long deceased member of their house, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pallavicino. The tomb of Antoniotto has been moved into the baptistery at an unknown date (but later than 1629) after temporary stay in the Chigi Chapel nearby.