The wall tomb of Cardinal Bernardino Lonati is similar to the coeval sepulchre of Ludovico Podocataro, and they both belong to the group of monuments from the age of Pope Alexander VI which made the basilica the shrine of the Borgia dynasty at the beginning of the 16th century. The monument was financed by Cardinal Ascanio Sforza after the death of his protégée on 7 August 1497, not long after Lonati had led an unsuccessful expedition against the Orsini family by order of the Pope. The architectural composition of the monument follows the models set by Andrea Bregno.