Statue of Pope Innocent X

Innocent X Pamphilj had been pope for barely six months when, in March 1645, the city councils that met in this palace voted him a bronze statue, to be ready for the Holy Year of 1650. The work first went to Francesco Mochi, a renowned bronze caster, who was paid an advance of 400 scudi in February 1646. Within weeks the commission fell through, and on 13 March 1646 it passed to Alessandro Algardi.

The first casting, probably made in the Vatican foundry, failed. Algardi took the blame himself, and in October 1648 his friend Cardinal Virgilio Spada gave him 200 scudi to pay for a second attempt. That cast was accepted, but with the Jubilee approaching there was no time to finish it properly. The casting seams were left and the surfaces barely worked, and critics have come to see that rough skin as part of the statue's strength. On 9 March 1650 the pope came up to the Capitol to look at it. Before 1671 it was moved across the square to the Palazzo Nuovo, and in 1818 it came back to this hall, onto its original pedestal.