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Art History History | Cerasi | Caravaggio Peter | Caravaggio Paul | Chigi Borgia
The Chigi Chapel: Raphael, Bernini's Habakkuk and the Angel, and... Dan Brown's Angels and Demons in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo
Habakkuk and the Angel The Chigi Chapel has become almost more famous than the Cerasi Chapel and its Caravaggio paintings since the publication of Dan Brown's book Angels and Demons, in which the hero, Professor Robert Langdon, visits it in search of clues.
The Chigi Chapel is home to Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture, known as Bernini'sHabakkuk and the Angel', or more precisely 'The Prophet Habakkuk Drawn by the Hair by the Angel", a sculpture that is one of four clues to finding the Temple of Enlightenment where the Illuminati meet in the Castel Sant'Angelo.
But the importance of this chapel is also and above all artistic.
It was built for Agostino Chigi, a wealthy banker and probably the richest man in Rome at the time, who had managed to obtain permission from Pope Julius II to have his own private chapel in Rome.
Once he had obtained this permission, he asked Raphael to decorate it.
Habakkuk and the Angel Raphael began his project for this chapel in 1513 and the mosaics in the dome were completed in 1516.
Raphael was inspired by the dome of the Pantheon for the architecture, and designed the mosaics that cover it as well as the side statues of Jonah and Elijah.
The mosaics and the two statues were created by the artist's disciples based on his drawings.
The mosaics were created by the Venetian Luigi de Pace: they depict God creating the heavens, surrounded by the signs of the zodiac, the sun and the planets.
A representation of the celestial vault, the afterlife, where the souls of the deceased are welcomed, all in accordance with the Neo-Platonic doctrine and astrological beliefs to which Augustin Chigi adhered.
The dome of the Chigi Chapel However, the final realisation of this Chapel would only be completed a century after Raphael's death, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who added two statues.
The first statue is to the right of the altar and depicts "The Prophet Habakkuk being pulled by the hair by the angel." Opposite it, diagonally across, the second statue depicts "Daniel and the Lion."
Above the altar is a beautiful "Birth of Mary" by Sebastiano del Piombo, one of the great artists of the time.
Pope Alexander VI Borgia and Santa Maria del Popolo
When Santa Maria del Popolo was patronised by Pope Alexander VI Rodrigo Borgia, he had his mistress Vannozza Catanei, the mother of several of his children, buried there.
Raphael, mosaics in the Chigi Chapel One of them is the famous Cesare Borgia, a leader who conformed to Machiavelli's model of "The Prince", a military man at heart, whom Leonardo da Vinci served as a military engineer.
The other famous child that Vannozza Catanei had with Alexander VI Borgia was the beautiful and cruel Lucrezia Borgia, suspected of bloody intrigues.
Another of Vannozza's sons with Pope Alexander VI, Giovanni, Duke of Gandia in Spain, was mysteriously murdered, possibly by his own brother, Cesare Borgia.
He was also buried in Santa Maria del Popolo with his mother.
Mysteriously, Vannozza Catanei's tombstone was torn off and is now embedded in one of the walls of the narthex of St. Mark's Basilica in Rome, far from Santa Maria del Popolo, but almost directly in line with it if you take Via del Corso.
It is also unknown whether the remains of Alexander VI's mistress and her son Giovanni are still here.
Art History History | Cerasi | Caravaggio Peter | Caravaggio Paul | Chigi Borgia
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