Chiesa di Santa Maria del Popolo

Lonely Planet review

A magnificent repository of art, this is one of Rome's earliest and richest Renaissance churches. The first chapel was built here in 1099 to exorcise the ghost of Nero, who was buried on this spot and whose malicious spirit haunted the area. 400 years later, it was given a major overhaul by Pope Sixtus IV. Pinturicchio was called in to decorate the Cappella Delle Rovere and, in 1508, to paint a series of frescoes on the ceiling.

The stained-glass windows, Rome's first, were crafted by Frenchman Guillaume de Marcillat. Raphael designed the Cappella Chigi, dedicated to his patron Agostino Chigi, but never lived to see it completed. Bernini finished the job for him more than 100 years later, contributing statues of Daniel and Habakkuk. The most famous feature, however, is the 17th-century mosaic of a kneeling skeleton, to remind the living of the inevitable end.

The church's principal calling card is the Cappella Cerasi with its two Caravaggios: the Conversione di San Paolo (Conversion of St Paul) and the Crocifissione di San Pietro (Crucifixion of St Peter). Of the two , it's the latter that strikes the most, if for nothing else than the brilliant way in which the artist shows the banal awkwardness of the situation. St Peter seems more embarrassed by his position than in pain as three executioners struggle to raise the upturned cross.