SAINT PETER'S, Dome
- Audio File length: 2.49
- Author: STEFANO ZUFFI E DAVIDE TORTORELLA
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Language: English / USA
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 reaches 137 meters, and it is always the indispensable reference point in Rome's skyline. Instead of admiring it from the square, I suggest going to see it better from the Vatican Gardens behind the basilica, where you can clearly distinguish its massive sculptural mass all the way up to the small temple-shaped lantern at the top, whose momentum liberates the energy given off by the building.
To build the immense dome, Michelangelo based his design on the work of his predecessors: he used the structures laid down by Bramante, with four gigantic pillars of a complex shape, and reintroduced the double shell technique invented by Filippo Brunelleschi for the dome of Florence's Cathedral....