On the right, in the 1st chapel, is the Crucifixion, by Scipione Gaetani; in the 3rd chapel, the Ascension, Maziano. On the left, in the 2nd chapel, is the Adoration of the Magi, Cesare Nebbia; in the 3rd chapel, the Nativity, Durante Alberti; in the 4th chapel, the Visitation, Baroccio. In the left transept are statues of SS. Peter and Paul, by Valsoldo, and the Presentation in the Temple, by Baroccio. When S. Filippo Neri saw this picture, he said to the painter "Ma come avete ben fatto!—Che vera somiglianza!—E così che mi ha apparato tante volte la Santa Vergine."
The high altar has four columns of porta-santa. Its pictures are by Rubens in his youth;—that in the centre represents the Virgin in a glory of angels; on the right are St. Gregory, S. Mauro, and St. Papias; on the left St. Domitilla, St. Nereus, and St. Achilleus.
The Sacristy, entered from the left transept, is by Marucelli. It has a grand statue of S. Filippo Neri, by Algardi. The ceiling is painted by Pietro da Cortona—the subject is an angel bearing the instruments of the passion to heaven.
The Monastery, built by Borromini, contains the magnificent library founded by S. Filippo. The cell of the saint is accessible, even to ladies. It retains his confessional, chair, shoes, rope-girdle,—and also a cast taken from his face after death, and some pictures which belonged to him, including one of Sta. Francesca Romana, and the portrait of an archbishop of Florence. In the private chapel adjoining, is the altar at which he daily said mass, over which is a picture of his time. Here also are the crucifix which was in his hands when he died, his candlesticks, and some sacred pictures on tablets which he carried to the sick. The door of the cell is the same, and the little bell by which he summoned his attendant. In a room below is the carved coffin in which he lay in state, a picture of him lying dead, and the portrait by Guercino from which the mosaic in the church is taken. A curious picture in this chamber represents an earthquake at Beneventum, in which Pope Gregory XIV. believed that his life was saved by an image of S. Filippo. When S. Filippo Nero died,—as in the case of S. Antonio,—the Catholic world exclaimed intuitively, "Il Santo è morto!"
"Let the world flaunt her glories! each glittering prize,
Though tempting to others, is naught in my eyes.
A child of St. Philip, my master and guide,
I would live as he lived, and would die as he died.
"If scanty my fare, yet how was he fed?
On olives and herbs and a small roll of bread.
Are my joints and bones sore with aches and with pains?
Philip scourged his young flesh with fine iron chains.
"A closet his home, where he, year after year,
Bore heat or cold greater than heat or cold here;
A rope stretch'd across it, and o'er it he spread
His small stock of clothes; and the floor was his bed.
"One lodging besides; God's temple he chose,
And he slept in its porch his few hours of repose;
Or studied by light which the altar-lamp gave,
Or knelt at the martyr's victorious grave."
J. H. Newman, 1857.
The church of the Chiesa Nuova belongs exclusively to the Oratorian Fathers. Pope Leo XII. wished to turn it into a parish church.
"It was said that the superior of the house took, and showed, to the Holy Father, an autograph memorial of the founder St. Philip Neri to the pope of his day, petitioning that his church should never be a parish. And below it was written that pope's promise, also in his own hand, that it never should. This pope was St. Pius V. Leo bowed to such authorities, said that he could not contend against two saints, and altered his plans."—Wiseman's Life of Leo XII.