Dome

View looking up at ceiling frescoes (by Giovanni da San Giovanni) and showing the altarpiece (by A. Masucci) called "S. Nicola da Tolentino"; Monnot created the animated funerary bust of Cardinal Savio Millini (marble, ca. 1699-1701; Rome, S Maria del Popolo). For Algardi the spectacular portrait achievement of these years, however, is the marble bust of Cardinal Giovanni Garzia Mellini (1637-1638; Rome, S Maria del Popolo), also a posthumous image, in which the Cardinal, represented down to the waist, is shown leaning forward slightly from the niche in his tomb and turned towards the altar with an expression of dignified devotion. The expressive realism of the work suggests that a death mask was used. Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.groveart.com/ (accessed 1/19/2008)