ST VINCENZO FERRER’S CHAPEL
Sixth of the left aisle, placed between that of St Sebastiano’s and St. Giacomo’s, the chapel of St Vincenzo Ferrer, which over time belonged to various families of the city, is famous for the presence of the Griffoni Polyptych, a 1472 tempera drawing by Francesco Cossa and Ercole De Roberti. The work, commissioned by Floriano Griffoni, a member of the family that first owned the chapel, was dismembered by Cardinal Pompeo Aldrovandi. Currently the various parts of the polyptych are found scattered in different museums of Europe and America. In its place, above the altar, the great tempera was put on canvas representing Vincenzo Ferrer. However, the painting by Vittorio Bigari was moved from there in 1896, when Achille Casanova repainted the chapel’s basement.
On the right side of the chapel is also the bronze monument of Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro, placed there in 1954 to commemorate the consecration of the basilica. Above the altar there is a Madonna in glory with the eighteenth-century Child, created by Ippolito Scarsella and donated to the Basilica in 1920 by the Marquis Fiaschi. Finally, in the niche above, there are two half figures executed by an unknown hand in the mid-seventeenth century: they represent Francesco Cospi, the church’s vestryman who died in in 1640 and his son Tommaso, who died ten years later.