The Long Sleep: Andrea Sansovino and the Cardinal Effigies at Santa Maria del Popolo

• In Event: Lying in State: The Effigy in Early Modern Italian Funerary Art ca. 1400–1600 I

Abstract

Andrea Sansovino’s twin cardinal tombs at Santa Maria del Popolo, produced between 1505 and 1509 for Pope Julius II, stand facing each other in the main chapel as eloquent commemorative monuments of the deceased and as masterpieces of marble by the artist. The twin tombs mark a critical shift in the function of memorialization of ecclesiastical figures. Some scholars, such as Erwin Panofsky, argued that the cardinals’ effigies are the most innovative and distinguishing feature on the tombs. The effigies are displayed as demi gisants with their heads rested on their hands propped by an elbow as if to appear in a state of slumber. This paper seeks to address the possible motivations for Sansovino’s unusual cardinal effigies, which inspired copyists, and will suggest that their unique qualities could be related to Augustinian notions of the “restful soul” and man’s salvation, themes highlighted throughout the visual program of the chapel.

Author

• Lara R. Langer, CASVA, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC