Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo site features

The Cerasi Chapel — two Caravaggios

Left of the high altar. The Crucifixion of Saint Peter, painted around 1601, and the Conversion of Saint Paul, on facing side walls, with Annibale Carracci's altarpiece between them. Carlo Maderno designed the chapel between 1600 and 1601. They are lit by coin-operated lights; bring change.

The Chigi Chapel — Raphael and Bernini

The second chapel on the left, built as a mausoleum for the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi to Raphael's design from 1513 and finished only between 1652 and 1656 with the intervention of Bernini. The dome of the centralised octagonal chapel carries Raphael's mosaics, the Creation of the World; Bernini added the sculptures of Habakkuk and the Angel and Daniel and the Lion.

Pinturicchio

The chapel built by Andrea Bregno between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth carries magnificent frescoes attributed to Pinturicchio and his workshop; the main altarpiece, The Adoration of the Child with St Jerome, is an exquisite autograph work by Pinturicchio himself. He also frescoed the sail vault of the Julius II choir.

The oldest stained glass in Rome

In the choir, by the French artist Guillaume de Marcillat. The Julius II choir was built in High Renaissance style and decorated with Pinturicchio's vault frescoes and de Marcillat's windows together.

Sansovino's tombs

Andrea Sansovino created two monumental tombs in the choir: for Cardinal Girolamo Basso della Rovere (died 1507), the favourite cousin of the pope, and Cardinal Ascanio Sforza (died 1505).

The walnut tree

Not a thing you can see, but the reason the church is here. Nero was said to be buried on this spot, and a huge walnut tree grew on the ruins — the haunt of a multitude of vicious demons harassing travellers — until Paschal II exorcised it in 1099 and laid the first stone of an altar where it had stood.

The Augustinians

The basilica is a parish church and minor basilica run by the Augustinian order, which is why it behaves like a parish and not like a museum: no ticket desk, no labels, and no published hours.