Santa Maria del Popolo

[spacedlaw]

A - little - break from food picture.
Today I had to get a haircut and I took the opportunity to visit the church of Santa Maria del Popolo (Piazza del Popolo).
The inside is fairly baroque yet also incredibly ancient.
It was built in the 11th century and flourished with the centuries.

It boast of a couple of Caravaggio, a statue by Bernini (which I could not see as the Chigi chapel it belongs to was closed for works), paintings by Pinturicchio and Annibale Caracci.
But the statues really stole the show for me, in particular this one:



Which is the lower part of a monument to the architect Giovanni Battista Gisleni.



The enormous monument to Maria Flaminia Odescalchi Chigi, for instance.



Complete with lion:



Or the one to Agostino Chigi:



Which sems to me a clear case of "Pass the opium, bitch!" if I ever saw one...

There was modern art by Giovani Manfredini:



And a pole dancing Christ:



There are disappearing graves on the floor, erased by too much passage, transforming the images of the medieval well to do into stone lepers:



Weird chapels:



(I haven't figured out who the guy is - some cardinal - but he gives me the creep)

And angels every where:







But I still prefer death :



And it has huge hands too!
"The better to grab you, my child..."