Carafa Chapel

The decoration of the chapel was commissioned by Cardinal Oliviero Carafa to Filippino Lippi, who came down from Florence to do the work, highly recommended to the prelate by Lorenzo il Magnifico. The various scenes show the great influence that roman antiquities had on the painter from Tuscany, who placed these elements into the painted cornices around his frescoes. On the vaulted ceiling are the Sybils along with the stem of Carafa, on the central wall is the Assumption of the Virgin with the Annunciation  acting as a false alter-piece, to the right is the splendid Triumph of Saint Thomas of Aquinas. The left wall, where Vice and Virtue once were, was transformed in the  Sixteenth Century with the addition of the Monument of Paol IV Carafa. i