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.
Mellini Chapel (Santa Maria del Popolo)
The oldest monumental tomb in the chapel is the funeral monument of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Mellini (died 1478), the Bishop of Urbino and the younger brother of Pietro Mellini. Giovanni Battista played an important part in the reconstruction of Saint Peter's Basilica during the reign of Pope Sixtus IV. The funeral inscription mentions his mission as papal legate to Milan in 1477. The monument was dismantled by Cardinal Savio Mellini in 1698 who appropriated the architectural frame for his own tomb and placed the effigy of his forefather in front of the new monument. This effigy lies on a bier decorated with richly handled fruits and flowers. The drapery on the figure runs in one sweep from head to foot. A 17th-century drawing in Windsor Castle preserved the original appearance of the tomb. Above the effigy there was a relief of Christ, the Man of Sorrows, being raised by angels from his tomb. The base of monument was decorated with the figures of two cherubs and the top was crowned with a shell pediment.