Chapel of St. Nicholas of Tolentino

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Chapel of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, 1599
by Vincenzo Conti, Andrea Lilio and Giovan Battista Ricci
Basilica of St. Augustine in Campo Marzio
Piazza di Sant’Agostino
Rome, June 2019

“The ancient chapel, already known to have existed in 1448, was granted in 1582 to the conte Vincenzo Tuttavilla, who entrusted the project for its architectural renovation and stucco decoration to the little-known Giovan Battista Cavagna in the immediately following years. The count, however, was embarrassed by financial difficulties, as attested by some documents. The result was that by 1588 the decoration of the vaulted ceiling still remained incomplete. The parts of its fresco decoration that had already been completed by this time were three figures of ‘Doctors of the Church’ by Andrea Lilio and ‘Stories of St. Nicholas of Tolentino’ (and perhaps the remaining ‘Doctor of the Church’) by Vincenzo Conti. The decoration of the chapel was then interrupted for ten years, and the chapel remained closed. In 1597, the Augustinian Fathers began a court action against the heirs of the conte Tuttavilla, with the result that sums of money were confiscated from them for the completion of the chapel’s decoration. But, despite that, the situation remained substantially unchanged until 1614, when the heir Maria Tuttavilla finally renounced all rights over the chapel. From that time onwards the Augustinian Fathers themselves assumed the cost of the enterprise. In 1615 they commissioned Giovan Battista Ricci from Novara to fresco the large lunettes of the side walls with a further two ‘Stories of St. Nicholas of Tolentino’, flanked by figures of Virtues.” (The Chapel of St. Nicholas of Tolentino in Sant’Agostino in Rome, Bollettino d'Arte)