SAINT PETER'S

INTRODUCTION

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St. Peter's is the largest Christian church in the world! The apostolic palaces and the colossal masterpiece of Renaissance and Baroque architecture you are about to visit make up the main part of...

Now walk towards the basilica through the immense but welcoming space of the square that Pope Alexander VII commissioned to Gian Lorenzo Bernini. You should know that until the middle of the sixteenth...

FAÇADE

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There's a stone on the ground between the obelisk and the fountains that indicates the point where you can look at the colonnade and see a single row of columns instead of four. The square welcomes...

HISTORY OF THE BASILICA

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And now I'd like to tell you about the basilica's history, which involved the greatest architects living in the 1500s and 1600s. The architect Donato Bramante from the Marche region was appointed by...

DOME

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All the Romans call St. Peter's dome "er cupolone" (dome is cupola in Italian): it is an unmistakable characterizing element of the city, even more so than the Colosseum. Its external height...

INTERIOR AND MICHELANGELO PIETA'

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Once you enter St. Peter's you're practically dazed by its size: they estimate that it can hold up to sixty thousand people. The entrance and the back wall are 218 meters apart, which is the...

INTERIOR - BERNINI'S BALDACHIN

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Now cross the large spaces of the basilica and head towards the main altar. Let me immediately start with a premise: if you want to truly understand the spirit of the Baroque reconstruction of St....

INTERIOR - CONCLUSION

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After having renovated the area of the high altar with the baldachin, Bernini placed the spectacular Chair of Saint Peter at the end of the basilica's long, central viewpoint. The...