In the first decade of the sixteenth century, artists and architects travelled to work in Rome to help fulfil the ambitions of Julius II (reg. 1503-13), who envisioned the city as the triumphant embodiment of papal power. 1 Michelangelo in 1499 and Raphael in 1508, for example, moved to the papal city relatively early in their careers, lured by the promise of wealthy patrons. 2 Others, including Donato Bramante who arrived in Rome from Milan for the 1500 jubilee, had established their workshops and could rely on extensive cultural and political networks. 3 Andrea Sansovino (1467-1529) was documented in Rome from 1505, responding to Julius II's commission for the tomb monument of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza in Santa Maria del Popolo (fig. 1). In 1492, shortly after completing the Corbinelli altar for Santo Spirito in Florence (fig. 2), he had established his reputation working for the royal court in Portugal. He eventually returned to Florence nine years later, around 1502, to work on prestigious public projects, including the Baptism of Christ group for the Baptistery (fig. 3). Giorgio Vasari records that Sansovino was then 'summoned to Rome' by Julius II, leaving the Baptistery group unfinished, and giving the impression, sustained in subsequent literature, that the sculptor's departure from Florence and arrival in Rome was unexpected. 4 More recent scholarship has uncovered a number of projects in Rome that may well date to the first few years after Andrea Sansovino's return to the Italian peninsula. Here I will add another one, and propose a less dramatic entrance to the Roman scene that nevertheless elucidates the reality of life as a jobbing artist, experienced or not. The most significant artistic project in Rome from the middle of the fifteenth century was the reconfiguration of St Peter's basilica. Work had initially focussed on improving the basilica's ability to enshrine the Apostolic Succession, witnessed to by the tombs and monuments of popes and cardinals. 5 Julius II took the project to a new level when, after 1505, work began to replace the choir and transepts of the venerable basilica which had stood on the slopes of the Vatican hill in Rome since the fourth century C.E.. 6 Bramante earned himself the nickname 'il ruinante' as a result of his enthusiastic beginning to a project that, in the end, lasted more than a century. Giacomo Grimaldi (1568-1623), a canon of St Peter's and the basilica's archivist, was responsible for cataloguing the altars, monuments and relics still extant in the old nave a century later, when, in 1605, Paul V (reg. 1605-21) decided to finish the job. 7 The tomb monument of Cardinal Ardicino della Porta Junior, who had died in 1493, was still in situ in an adjoining chapel, and, according to Grimaldi, it was the work of Andrea Sansovino