St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City

On our trip we visited magnificent churches representing diverse architectures and decorations. No such thing like you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, especially not if you’ve had a year of college art history. Well worth the feet sore from walking all day and now through another and sometime sore neck from looking skyward at magnificence.
The two that were for me the most compelling in Rome were of course St. Peter’s and the second being the Pantheon. Now this might seem a strange pairing. Spouse and I and his brother and wife took a cab to the Vatican in the mid-afternoon following a day of walking through many more streets than we’d planned on when we set out about 8:30. The map the hotel supplied was easy to follow, and the streets aren’t that long….

St. Peter’s Square does not seem as large in life as it does in pictures–it’s certainly large enough, but photography seems to expand it further. Impressive, no kidding, and the minute you step into its confines the world takes on a slightly different aspect–hard to fully believe you are really there. The colonnades on either side are like welcoming outstretched arms. People literally from all over the world and of all creeds wait patiently in long lines to enter the cathedral, properly dressed according to signs at the beginning of the lines showing acceptable clothing and items permissible to carry with you. Near the stairs to the entrance there are metal detectors and x-ray machines to pass your person and your purse or pocket contents, but it is not a bottleneck as you might expect. The Vatican security are probably as adept at judging people as are Israeli security, and the Swiss Guard elsewhere in the complex are surely much more than mere decoration.
Once admitted past security, it’s up the steps so many millions of feet have trod to the entry door and into a stunningly magnificent building for which no pictures can fully prepare you. Awesome barely describes the feast before your eyes, and you have entered a slightly other world that can’t be absorbed fast enough to keep from being overwhelmed. We thought that taking one of the tours would not likely have helped that much, so I bought a book in the Vatican Library on the way out.

First sight was the main altar and the towering canopy above it, the intricate artwork above and around that, and the appreciation for the genius of the men who designed, built, and decorated it over the centuries, beginning in 324 during the reign of the Emperor Constantine and at his wish. It was built over the grave of St. Peter. Barbarian invasions destroyed or damaged intervening basilicas, and what we see today is the result of Pope Julius II’s desire to complete the plan begun by Pope Nicholas V, and in 1506 Julius laid the cornerstone.
We left Pope Julius II laying the foundation stone to the new St. Peter’s in 1506, the design in the capable hands of Donato Bramante, and the work beginning with the demolition of previous walls to make room for his master work. It was to be a long journey to completion, as Julius II died in 1513 and Bramante in 1514. St. Peter’s was finally completed and consecrated by Pope Urban VIII in 1626, and his master of works then was Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
Bernini’s artistry included the magnificent Altar of the Chair in the apse behind the central canopied altar. An ancient wooden chair inlaid with ivory with fragments of acacia wood visible had been long revered as the Chair of Peter, and Pope Alexander VII bid him build a suitable monument to enshrine it. A throne of gilded bronze encases it, richly ornamented in Baroque style, surrounded by elegant Baroque statuary and suspended above its altar as if floating on clouds. It is a stunning work completed in 1666. Now for some people, the Baroque style is just too busy and distracting and detailed. IMHO, this one works and awes.

After Bramante’s death, Michaelangelo took on directing the work at age 72 and did so until his death in 1564. His artistry for St. Peter’s included the magnificent, haunting, sorrowful yet not despairing La Pieta and the incomparable Sistine Chapel paintings. We did not get a close look at La Pieta as the church was jammed with visitors, being a Saturday, and Rome was locked in a warmer than expected weather week with highs in the mid 80s and plenty of humidity, and St. Peter’s does not have ac. It was becoming quite uncomfortable inside, so we left and got cooler air out on the square. There was no time to get in line to get into the Sistine Chapel before it closed for the day, regrettably. Another time….
The Square contains two monumental fountains 14 meters high, symbolic of Christ the source of the Living Water of Eternal Life. These are on either side of a pink granite Egyptian obelisk 25.31 meters high on a base 8.25 meters wide, built by Pharaoh Mencares in 1835 BC in honor of the sun. It was brought to Rome from Heliopolis, Egypt on order of lunatic Emperor Caligula and placed in the circus he had built. It witnessed many martyrdoms of Christians. In 1586 it was moved to St. Peter’s Square and was dedicated to the Holy Cross. It is huge and difficult to imagine how it was moved with less than modern machinery.

Reference: St. Peter’s, Guide to the Square and the Basilica by Nicolo Suffi, translated by Kate Marcelin-Rice. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1998, 119 pp.