Monument to Leo Xl, One of the Shortest Reigning Popes

Private Tours of the Vatican Museums

Funerary monument of Pope Leo Xl by Alessandro Algardi

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He might only have been pope for 27 days, but Leo Xl (1605) was still honoured with an impressive marble monument in St Peter's Basilica.

The monument (1633-44) was commissioned by the pope's grand-nephew, Cardinal Roberto Ubaldini, and is the work of Alessandro Algardi (1595-1654), a sculptor from Bologna. Algardi emphasised the pope’s munificence with allegorical figures of Magnanimity and Liberality. 

Leo XI was born (1535) Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici, a member of the famous Florentine family and the great-nephew of Pope Leo X (1513-21). 

The images of roses at the base of the monument, and the inscription 'SIC FLORUI', refer to the brevity of Pope Leo Xl's reign (April 1st to April 27th, 1605).

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Pope Leo XI by Alessandro Algardi