Agostino Chigi

Agostino Chigi (August 28 1465 - April 11 1520) was an Italian banker of the Renaissance.

Born in Siena, he was the member of an ancient and illustrious house, the Chigi. He moved to Rome around 1487, collaborating with his father Mariano. The heir of a rich fund of capital, and enriched further after loaning huge amounts of money to Pope Alexander VI (and to other rulers of the time as well) he also obtained lucrative monopolies like the salt monopoly of the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples, as well as that of the alum excavated in Tolfa, Agnato and Ischia di Castro. Alum was an essential mordant in the textile industry.

After the death of the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, he helped Pope Julius II: the latter rewarded him, linking Chigi to the della Rovere family, and creating him treasurer and notary of the Apostolic Camera. Agostino established economic ties with the whole of Western Europe, at one time having up to 20,000 employees, receiving from Siena the title of "Magnifico" ("Magnificent").In Rome, the villa he built in Trastevere bears the name of its later owners: Villa Farnesina ("illustration, left"). Chigi became also a rich patron of art and literature, the protector of Pietro Aretino among others. His mistress Imperia was the toast of Rome. His artistic protegés included almost all the main figures of the early sixteenth century: Perugino, Sebastiano del Piombo, Giovanni da Udine, Giulio Romano, Sodoma and Raphael. With the exception of Perugino, these figures were called upon to provide the decoration of his splendid villa built on the shore of the Tiber, which today, having passed to the Farnese, is known as Villa Farnesina. Here Raphael frescoed his "Triumph of Galatea". Here Chigi held sumptuous repasts. In order to show his contempt of money, he was said to have all the silver dishes thrown into the river after the end of the parties: however, his servants were secretly ready to recollect them with nets draped under the windows.

Chigi commissioned from Raphael the construction of the Chigi Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in which the banker was buried after his death in 1520. Another family chapel was built and frescoed by Raphael in Santa Maria della Pace.

ee also

*Chigi family