The Other Sistine Chapel: Reconstructing Sixtus IV’s Choir Chapel in Old St. Peter’s

Abstract

Pope Sixtus IV’s choir chapel was the last architectural addition to Old St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The chapel was intended both as a mausoleum and a space for the Chapter to perform daily liturgy and music, improvements to which Sixtus had promoted. Based on a sixteenth-century woodcarver’s sketchbook, the author presents a reconstruction of the chapel, in which Pollaiuolo’s bronze tomb, commissioned by Sixtus’s nephew Giuliano della Rovere (later Julius II), was surrounded by three rows of carved stalls. This proximity of tomb and choir afforded Sixtus potent spiritual benefits, and the functionality of the chapel guaranteed its continued use.

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