Upon completion of the renovations that affected the entire convent and in particular the new ‘Vanvitellian Vase’, the Augustinians commissioned the marble busts that currently adorn the access doors to the galleries. Among the documents kept at the State Archives in Rome, an expenditure of 150 scudi in favour of Gaspare Sibilla is recorded for the year 1764. “A ‘papal sculptor’, the creator or person responsible for the acquisition of many marbles that have found their way into the Pio-Clementino Museum, a probable pupil of Pietro Bracci and from 1772 an academician of St. Luke’s, Gaspare Sibilla is the author of the bust dedicated to Cardinal Egidio Colonna, characterised by a thick beard and the cardinal’s biretta, and the one portraying Benedict XIV in papal robes.

On the other hand, the bust of Clement XIII ‘the present Pope’ can be attributed to Pietro Bracci. It differs from the others in its broad shoulders, its longer cut and an evident asymmetry in the folds of the mozzetta.

There is no archival information on the last bust, dedicated to the Veronese Cardinal Enrico Noris, librarian of the Vatican Library, who had left his book collection to the Angelica Library. Most probably a work by Francesco Moratti, a sculptor from Padua who had also been commissioned other busts of religious figures placed in the nearby church of Sant’Agostino, the cardinal is depicted with his face furrowed by evident wrinkles that give it a marked sense of realism.