Santa Maria del Popolo

A detour up Via del Babuino (Baboon St) leads to the Piazza del Popolo, another brilliant piece of Baroque town planning (see if you can spot the difference between the two seemingly identical churches). Santa Maria del Popolo, standing beside Bernini's gate leading out of the city, built to celebrate Queen Christina of Sweden's arrival is Rome, is crammed with treasures. This was the favourite church of the remarkable della Rovere Popes: Sixtus IV, the builder of the Sistine Chapel, and his nephew Julius II, the greatest patron of the entire Renaissance. The finest works of art are Pinturicchio's Adoration of the Christ Child, commissioned by Julius II, in the first chapel on the right, the Chigi Chapel in the left aisle, designed by Raphael as the burial chapel of Agostino Chigi with Bernini's statues of Habakkuk and Daniel, and two powerful Caravaggios of the Conversion of St Paul and the Crucifixion of St Peter in the small Cerasi Chapel on the left of the high altar.