Pope Sixtus IV

Princely patronage

As a civic patron in Rome, even the anti-papal chronicler Stefano Infessura agreed that Sixtus must be admired. The dedicatory inscription in the fresco by Melozzo da Forli in the Vatican Palace records: "You gave your city temples, streets, squares, fortifications, bridges and restored the Aqua Virgine as far as the Trevi..." In addition to restoring the aqueduct that provided Rome an alternative to the river water that had made the city famously unhealthy, he restored or rebuilt over 30 of Rome's dilapidated churches, among them San Vitale (1475) and Santa Maria del Popolo, and added seven new ones. The Sistine Chapel was sponsored by Sixtus, as was the Ponte Sisto, the Sistine Bridge— the first new bridge across the Tiber since Antiquity— to facilitate the integration of the Vatican Hill with the heart of old Rome. This was part of a broader scheme of urbanization carried out under Sixtus, who swept the long-established markets from the Campidoglio in 1477 and decreed in a bull of 1480 the widening of streets and the first post-Roman paving, the removal of porticoes and other post-classical impediments to free public passage.

Related Topics:
Stefano Infessura - Melozzo da Forli - Vatican Palace - Aqua Virgine - Trevi - 1475 - Sistine Chapel - Tiber - Vatican Hill - Urbanization - Campidoglio - 1477 - 1480

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At the beginning of his papacy in 1471, he donated several historically important Roman sculptures that founded a papal collection of art that would eventually develop into the collections of the Capitoline Museums. He also refounded, enriched and enlarged the Vatican Library. He had Regiomontanus attempt the first sanctioned reorganization of the Julian calendar and called Josquin des Prez to Rome for his music. His bronze funerary monument in St. Peter's Basilica, like a giant casket of goldsmith's work, is by Antonio Pollaiuolo.

Related Topics:
1471 - Capitoline Museums - Vatican Library - Regiomontanus - Julian calendar - Josquin des Prez - St. Peter's Basilica - Antonio Pollaiuolo

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