  We consider D7-branes probing several classes of Type IIB supergravity
backgrounds, and study the classical problem of finding equilibrium
configurations for the embedding functions. This is a method employed to model
chiral symmetry breaking in the gravity dual of a strongly-coupled, confining
gauge theory. We unveil and discuss a new type of phase transition appearing in
the gravity systems, which is similar in nature and meaning to bulk phase
transitions on the lattice. The existence of this genre of phase transition
puts a new, intrinsic limit on the region of parameter space which can be used
to study the physics of the dual field theory. We complete the analysis of D7
embeddings in wrapped-D5 supergravity backgrounds, and explain in what cases
chiral-symmetry breaking is sensibly modelled by the gravity construction.
