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.
Della Rovere Chapel (Santa Maria del Popolo)
The chapel was bought by Cardinal Domenico della Rovere in 1477 after the reconstruction of the church by his relative, Pope Sixtus IV. The interior of the chapel with the tomb of Cardinal Cristoforo della Rovere (†1478), the marble altar and the pictorial decoration was executed in the following years. The frescoes are attributed to Pinturicchio and his school. According to the traditional dating he worked in the chapel from 1488 to 1490, at the same time when he created the frescoes of Palazzo Della Rovere (now Palazzo dei Penitenzieri) for the cardinal.