#8 St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, ITALY

The Centre of the Roman Catholic faith, St. Peter's draws pilgrims from all over the world. Few are disappointed when they enter the sumptuously decorated basilica beneath Michelangelo's vast dome. A shrine was erected on the site of St. Peter's tomb in the 2and century and the first great basilica, ordered by the Emperor Costantine, was completed around AD 349.

By the 15th century it was falling down, so in 1506 Pope Julius II laid the first stone of a new church. It took more than a century to build and all the great architects of the Roman Renaissance and Baroque had a hand in its design.

In 1626 Urban VIII commissioned Bernini to continue the work, especially the restructuring of the façade. Then, after falling from favor under Innocent X, he was brought back by Alexander VII (1655-67) to design the new square in front of the basilica.

Maderno's façade needed to be given greater breadth; the irregular buildings surrounding the square in 1586 had to be hidden; the obelisk set up in the square in 1586 had to be taken into account; and it was also necessary to enable a larger crowd to see the Pope during the “Urbi et Orbi” blessing.

Bernini' solution was to design a piazza in the form of an ellipse, bordered by a quadruple colonnade forming a portico wide enough to let a carriage pass. The foci of the are indicated by marble disk on each side of the two fountains; standing on either of these disks you can see only one row of columns, instead of four.

Two wings link the colonnades to the basilica: the one on the right end at the Scala Regia, the one on the left at the Arco delle Campane.

Architectural contributors include:
Donato Bramante whose design won Julius II's competition
Antonio da Sangallo, a student of Bramante, designed the Pauline Chapel
Fra Giocondo strengthened the foundation
Raphael worked with Fra Giocondo, his redesigned building plan was not executed
Michelangelo designed the dome, crossing, and exterior excluding the nave and facade
Giacomo della Porta, designed the cupola
Carlo Maderno, extended Michelangelo's plan adding a nave and grand facade
Gian Lorenzo Bernini added the piazza, the Cathedra Petri, and the Baldacchino

Pope Julius II commissioned Bramante to build a new basilica. This involved demolishing the Old St Peter's Basilica that had been erected by Constantine in the 4th century. The church was old, and in disrepair. But tearing it down was a bold manouever that gives us a sense of the enormous ambition of Pope Julius II, both for the papacy as well as for himself.

The site is a very holy one -- it is (according to the Church) the site of the burial of St. Peter (remember he was the first Pope). Bramante did the first plan for the new church. He proposed an enormous centrally planned church in the shape of a Greek cross enclosed within a square with an enormous dome over the center, and smaller domes and half-domes radiating out. When Bramante died, Raphael took over as chief architect for St. Peter's, and when Raphael died, Michelangelo took over. Both Michelangelo and Raphael made substantial changes to Bramante's original plan. Nevertheless, the experience of being inside St. Peter's is awe-inspiring.

The two basic types of Church are the basilica and the central plan.

The basilica, with its long axis that focuses attention on the altar, has been the most popular type of church plan because of its practicality.

The other popular type of church plan is a central plan that is usually based either on the shape of a circle, or on a Greek cross (a cross with equal arms). These are called central plans because the measurements are all equidistant from a center. This type of Church, influenced by Classical architecture (think of the Pantheon), was very popular among High Renaissance architects. Besides the influence of ancient Roman architecture, the circle had spiritual associations. The circle, which has no beginning and no end, symbolized the perfection and eternal nature of God. For some thinkers in antiquity and the Renaissance the universe itself was constructed in the form of concentric circles with the sun, moon and stars moving in circular orbits around the earth.

St. Peter's Basilica, is a Late Renaissance church located within the Vatican City. St. Peter's Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world. It is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic sites. It has been described as "holding a unique position in the Christian world" and as "the greatest of all churches of Christendom".

In Catholic tradition, the basilica is the burial site of its namesake Saint Peter, who was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus and, according to tradition, first Bishop of Rome and therefore first in the line of the papal succession. Tradition and some historical evidence hold that Saint Peter's tomb is directly below the altar of the basilica. For this reason, many Popes have been interred at St Peter's since the Early Christian period. There has been a church on this site since the 4th century. Construction of the present basilica, over the old Constantinian basilica, began on April 18, 1506 and was completed on November 18, 1626.

St. Peter's is famous as a place of pilgrimage, for its liturgical functions and for its historical associations. It is associated with the papacy, with the Counter-reformation and with numerous artists, most significantly Michelangelo. As a work of architecture, it is regarded as the greatest building of its age. Contrary to popular misconception, Saint Peter's is not a cathedral, as it is not the seat of a bishop. It is properly termed a papal basilica. The Basilica of St. John Lateran is the cathedral church of Rome.


The Basilica of St. Peter is a huge church in the Renaissance style located in Rome west of the River Tiber and near the Janiculum Hill and Hadrian's Mausoleum. Its central dome dominates the skyline of Rome. The basilica is approached via St Peter's Piazza, a forecourt in two sections, both surrounded by tall colonnades. The first space is oval and the second trapezoid. The facade of the basilica, with a giant order of columns, stretches across the end of the square and is approached by steps on which stand two 5.55 metres (18.2 ft) statues of the 1st century apostles to Rome, Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

The basilica is cruciform in shape, with an elongated nave in the Latin cross form but the early designs were for a centrally planned structure and this is still in evidence in the architecture. The central space is dominated both externally and internally by one of the largest domes in the world. The entrance is through a narthex, or entrance hall, which stretches across the building. One of the decorated bronze doors leading from the narthex is the Holy Door, only opened in Holy Years.

The interior is of vast dimensions by comparison with other churches. One author wrote: "Only gradually does it dawn upon us - as we watch people draw near to this or that monument, strangely they appear to shrink; they are, of course, dwarfed by the scale of everything in the building. This in its turn overwhelms us."

There is a barrel-vaulted nave, the highest of any church, leading to the central dome. The aisles are lower and have a number of chapels off them. There are also chapels surrounding the central dome. Moving around the basilica in a clockwise direction they are: The Baptistery, the Chapel of the Presentation of the Virgin, the larger Choir Chapel, the Clementine Chapel with the altar of St Gregory, the Sacristy Entrance, the left transept with altars to the Crucifixion of St Peter, St Joseph and St Thomas, the altar of the Sacred Heart, the Chapel of the Madonna of Colonna, the altar of St Peter and the Paralytic, the apse with St Peter's Cathedra, the altar of St Peter raising Tabitha, the altar of the Archangel Michael, the altar of the Navicella, the right transept with altars of St Erasmus, Saints Processo and Martiniano, and St Wenceslas, the altar of St Basil, the Gregorian Chapel with the altar of the Madonna of Succour, the larger Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, the Chapel of St Sebastian and the Chapel of the Pieta.

The entire interior is lavishly decorated with marble, reliefs, architectural sculpture and gilding. The basilica contains a large number of tombs of popes and other notable people, many of which are considered outstanding artworks. There are also a number of sculptures in niches and chapels, including Michelangelo's Pieta. The central feature is a baldachin, or canopy over the Papal Altar, designed by Gianlorenzo Bernini. The sanctuary culminates in a sculptural ensemble, also by Bernini, and containing the symbolic Chair of St Peter.

One observer wrote: "St Peter's Basilica is the reason why Rome is still the center of the civilized world. For religious, historical, and architectural reasons it by itself justifies a journey to Rome, and its interior offers a palimpsest of artistic styles at their best..."

The American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson described St Peter's as "an ornament of the earth ....the sublime of the beautiful."