Description
St. Peter's Basilica stands in the Vatican, on the spot where tradition places the tomb of the apostle Peter. It is the largest Catholic church, a masterpiece of the Renaissance and the Baroque whose dome rules the city's skyline from afar.
The exterior is travertine, with Carlo Maderno's facade, about 115 meters wide. Above the central portal opens the Loggia of the Blessings, from which the election of a new pope is announced to the people.
Inside, the proportions throw you: the basilica is 218 meters long and the nave is an immense gallery of marble, niches and statues, with ten thousand square meters of mosaics on its surfaces.
The floor is a design by Bernini for the Jubilee of 1650, with a red porphyry disc from the old basilica, the Rota Porphyretica, on which Charlemagne knelt on the day of his coronation.
At the far end, under the dome, Bernini's Baldacchino, almost 30 meters of bronze on four twisted columns, covers the papal altar, exactly above Peter's tomb. Farther on, in the apse, the Chair of St. Peter is a monumental reliquary by Bernini, with the dove blazing above it.
Michelangelo's dome is the emblem of the basilica: over 133 meters high, two shells one inside the other as in Florence, 551 steps from the base to the lantern. Those who climb see Rome from above, and, inside, the mosaics that run under the vault.
In the first chapel on the right stands the Pietà, sculpted by Michelangelo in 1499, when he was very young, and now protected by a glass case. The marble is so smooth it looks soft. In the same aisle you also find the tomb of St. John Paul II.
Against a pillar, the bronze statue of St. Peter is attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio. Among the funerary monuments, those of Alexander VII, by Bernini, where a skeleton holds up an hourglass before a door, and of Clement XIII, by Canova, stand out. Beneath the floor, in the Vatican Grottoes, many popes lie at rest.
Building all this took over a century and a whole chain of popes. In its place stood a basilica founded by Constantine in the 4th century, which in 1505 Julius II decided to tear down to make way for a new design, entrusted to Bramante.
Bramante demolished much of the old building, and Rome never forgave him: they called him "maestro ruinante," the wrecking master. After him the works passed to Raphael and Sangallo, and in 1547 to Michelangelo, by then seventy, who got work going in several places at once to force his successors to respect his design.
Michelangelo did not live to see the dome finished: at his death they had reached the drum. Giacomo Della Porta closed it in barely two years, with a more soaring curve. Then Maderno lengthened the nave and the facade, and Bernini filled the interior with masterpieces.
Don't miss
• The Pietà.
• Bernini's Baldacchino.
• The dome.
• The Chair of St. Peter.
• The Vatican Grottoes.
Did you know?
• The bronze of the Baldacchino was taken from the Pantheon.
• On the floor of the nave, gilded stars mark the length of other great churches of the world: none reaches the far end.
• The Pietà has been protected since 1972, when a man struck it several times with a hammer.
The exterior is travertine, with Carlo Maderno's facade, about 115 meters wide. Above the central portal opens the Loggia of the Blessings, from which the election of a new pope is announced to the people.
Inside, the proportions throw you: the basilica is 218 meters long and the nave is an immense gallery of marble, niches and statues, with ten thousand square meters of mosaics on its surfaces.
The floor is a design by Bernini for the Jubilee of 1650, with a red porphyry disc from the old basilica, the Rota Porphyretica, on which Charlemagne knelt on the day of his coronation.
At the far end, under the dome, Bernini's Baldacchino, almost 30 meters of bronze on four twisted columns, covers the papal altar, exactly above Peter's tomb. Farther on, in the apse, the Chair of St. Peter is a monumental reliquary by Bernini, with the dove blazing above it.
Michelangelo's dome is the emblem of the basilica: over 133 meters high, two shells one inside the other as in Florence, 551 steps from the base to the lantern. Those who climb see Rome from above, and, inside, the mosaics that run under the vault.
In the first chapel on the right stands the Pietà, sculpted by Michelangelo in 1499, when he was very young, and now protected by a glass case. The marble is so smooth it looks soft. In the same aisle you also find the tomb of St. John Paul II.
Against a pillar, the bronze statue of St. Peter is attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio. Among the funerary monuments, those of Alexander VII, by Bernini, where a skeleton holds up an hourglass before a door, and of Clement XIII, by Canova, stand out. Beneath the floor, in the Vatican Grottoes, many popes lie at rest.
Building all this took over a century and a whole chain of popes. In its place stood a basilica founded by Constantine in the 4th century, which in 1505 Julius II decided to tear down to make way for a new design, entrusted to Bramante.
Bramante demolished much of the old building, and Rome never forgave him: they called him "maestro ruinante," the wrecking master. After him the works passed to Raphael and Sangallo, and in 1547 to Michelangelo, by then seventy, who got work going in several places at once to force his successors to respect his design.
Michelangelo did not live to see the dome finished: at his death they had reached the drum. Giacomo Della Porta closed it in barely two years, with a more soaring curve. Then Maderno lengthened the nave and the facade, and Bernini filled the interior with masterpieces.
Don't miss
• The Pietà.
• Bernini's Baldacchino.
• The dome.
• The Chair of St. Peter.
• The Vatican Grottoes.
Did you know?
• The bronze of the Baldacchino was taken from the Pantheon.
• On the floor of the nave, gilded stars mark the length of other great churches of the world: none reaches the far end.
• The Pietà has been protected since 1972, when a man struck it several times with a hammer.