San Domenico

Monument to Pope Benedict XI (ca. 1324)

The Dominican Pope Benedict XI was a great benefactor of San Domenico.  He died in Perugia in 1304, and his monument was originally erected in San Domenico Vecchio.  It was moved to the left transept of the present church in 1700, at which point the relics were also installed behind the grate above the high altar.  The monument was restored and re-erected in its current location (on the right wall of the Cappellla degli Apostoli) in 1959.  The original inscription is separately displayed to the right of the monument. 

The monument seems to have been modeled on Arnolfo di Cambio's monument (ca. 1282) to Cardinal Guillaume de Bray, which in San Domenico, Orvieto.  It is usually dated on stylistic grounds to a period some twenty years after the death of the Pope.   Giorgio Vasari attributed it to Giovanni Pisano (died 1314), but this is not generally accepted.

Pope Benedict XI is depicted twice on his monument:

• He lies in effigy on the sarcophagus, behind curtains drawn apart by angels.
  

• He kneels in the tabernacle above as St Dominic presents him to the Madonna and Child as St Benedict looks on from the right.  
  

Return to the interior of San Domenico.