Mors ad caelos

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Mors aD CaeLos (Through death to heaven)
Chigi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo
Piazza del Popolo
Rome, May 2019

“The present pavement was designed by Bernini who walled in a preexisting opening in front of the altar and raised the altar by two steps emphasizing its symbolic importance (the third step is a later addition which disrupts the decorative pattern). The elegantly molded original steps were made of monolith blocks of statuario marble. The white and grey bardiglio marble pavement has a geometric pattern corresponding with the decoration of the dome. There is an inlaid opus sectile roundel at the center, surrounded by a frame of stylized roses and oak leaves. Inside the figure of a winged skeleton is lifting the coat-of-arms of the Chigi family symbolizing the triumph of dynastic virtue over death. There is a scroll with a Latin inscription under the figure: Mors aD CaeLos (meaning ‘through death to heaven’). The capital letters add up the date of the beginning of the reconstruction in Roman numerals: MDCL = 1650. The roundel was executed by stonecutter Gabriele Renzi in 1653/54. (Contemporary sources prove that the inscription was originally ‘Mors aD CaeLos Iter’, the letters adding up to 1651, the year when Fabio Chigi returned to Rome on the last day of November after his long absence abroad.)” (Chigi Chapel, Wikipedia)