[2] Around 1527, having finished his stay in Rome and before being commissioned to build important fortifications for the Venetian Republic, Michele Sanmicheli resided in Verona with his cousin Paolo, with whom he collaborated on numerous construction sites.

[8] The design of the work was entrusted to Sanmicheli, who created a space endowed with a great harmony of parts and a clear distribution of light, with an architecture reminiscent of ancient buildings, particularly the Pantheon in Rome, Porta Borsari and the Gavi Arch in Verona.

[11] The countess's dislike of Paolo Sanmicheli's management of the building site was due to her eagerness to see the chapel completed, given her precarious health condition: seeing that the work was proceeding very slowly caused her anxiety and concern.

[6] Pellegrini's last will is dated September 24, 1557, and reports that the monument was still being completed, which is why she requested that the construction of the chapel continue after her death and that the building be kept in good condition.

[12] Giuliari's project thus went on to add, to the portion of the chapel built by the Marastoni, a rich decorative apparatus in stone and stucco, so as to bring the appearance of the monument closer to Sanmicheli's original design.

During the work, efforts were made to solve problems related to rising damp in the perimeter walls of the structure, as well as water infiltration from the glass windows of the drum.

[16] The presence of Michele Sanmicheli's preliminary designs in the Uffizi Gallery has made it possible to learn about the evolutionary stages of the work: the Veronese architect, in fact, at first planned to build a chapel with a Greek-cross plan larger than the one actually realized; externally, then, the surface was to be more articulated and decorated thanks to the presence of tall pilasters, of Corinthian order placed on pedestals, and the dome, visible even from outside.

A monumental project, taking inspiration from the Pantheon in Rome and Raphael's Chigi Chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo.

[18] The monumental vestibule is a rather original solution and a result of the need to prevent the structure from interfering with the Avanzi and Medici chapels already present in San Bernardino.

[18] Interspersed with the tabernacles are empty niches that would have housed statues, decorated on the sides with candelabras carved in the lesenes, by shells in the basins and garlands at the base of the top entablature.

[23] The chapel abounds with sculptural decorations whose elegance of execution finds few other examples in 16th-century architecture,[1] and although the final result of the work turns out to be different from the initial plan drawn up by Sanmicheli, it recalls the style of the Veronese architect in many respects.