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Rome - Saint Peter's Basilica,
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Saint
Peter's Basilica ( Basilica
Di San Pietro )
Saint Peter's Basilica,
Information about St. Peter's
Basilica Tours in Rome -
The Holy see in Rome, Saint
Peter's Rome
OFFICIAL TOUR COMPANY OF
ROME AND Vatican city
www.tourinrome.com
www.vaticanguidedtour.com
info@romeinformation.info
Looming
over all is the massive
façade of the Basilica
of St. Peter and a lofty
campanile topped by the
famous golden cockerel
that everyone believed would
some day crow to announce
the end of the world.
This
St Peter's, where
Charlemagne and
Frederick II received
their imperial crowns,
was falling to pieces by
the 1400s, conveniently
in time for the popes
and artists of
the Renaissance to plan
a replacement.
The first
to do so was Nicholas
V, who, in about 1450,
conceived an almost Neronian
building programme for
the
Vatican,
ten times as large as anything
his ancestors could have
contemplated -a complex
that would have stretched
all the way to
Castel
Sant'Angelo.
It was
not until Julius II
realized that there was
not enough room in the
basilica for his planned
tomb that he commissioned
Bramante to demolish
the old church and begin
the new.
His original
plan called for a great
dome over a central Greek
cross. Michelangelo,
who took over the work in
1546, basically agreed,
and if he had had his way
St Peter's might indeed
have become the crowning
achievement of Renaissance
art everyone hoped it
would be.
The most
substantial tinkering came
in 1605, when Paul V
and his committed cardinals
decided on a Latin cross
after all.
Carlo
Maderno was given the task
of demolishing the portico
of the old basilica
to extend the nave, which
had the unforeseen effect
of blocking out the view
of the dome, and he designed
the facade (1612) with
Paul V's name blazoned
on top.
But Maderno
shouldn't be blamed for
its disproportionate width:
Bernini, who was
in charge of decorating
the interior, had the bright
idea of adding twin campaniles
to the flanks which were
such a dismal failure that
they were levelled to the
same height as Maderno's
facade.
In the
centre is the balcony from
which the pope gives his
Urbl et Orbi blessing at
Easter and Christmas.
On 18
Nov 1626, the supposed 1300th
anniversary of the original
basilica, Urban
VIII consecrated the
new St Peter's.
Step
inside, hopefully past the
security men and the dress
code bouncers without trouble,
and into the Portico.
Some
of the best art in St
Peter's is in the
Portico, beginning with
the oldest and hardest to
see, Giotto's 1298 mosaic
of Christ walking on water,
called the Navi cella, located
in the tympanum over the
central door; this has been
so often loved and restored
almost nothing remains of
the original. At the extreme
right end of the portico
is Bernini's equestrian
statue of Constantine,
showing the Emperor staring
at the vision of the cross.
There
are five sets of bronze
doors into the basilica,
the work of some of Italy's
leading modern sculptors.
the Holy
Door, opened only in Holy
Years (1950, by Vico Consorti);
the next, by Venanzio Crocetti
(1968); the famous central
doors, from Old St Peter's,
made by Antonio Filarete
(1439-45), with scenes from
the lire of Pope Eugenius
IV, who held an ecumenical
council in Florence
in 1441, an attempt to reconcile
the differences between
the Eastern and
Western Churches
III face of the
mutual Turkish threat;
you can recognize Emperor
John Palaeologos by
his pointy hat, while
Ethiopian monks pay
homage to Eugenius.
on the
other side of the right
door, at the bottom,
Filarete and his
workmen may be seen dancing
with their tools below an
inscription in pidgin
Latium.
The next
set of doors to the left
are by Giacomo Manzu
(1963), with harrowing
scenes of death and
martyrdoms and
victims torn like paper
bags.
The last
set of doors, by Luciano
Minguzzi (1977), includes
a charming hedgehog.
The plodding
equestrian statue
at the left end is of Charlemagne,
by Cornacchini, giving the
portico two knights in case
any of the giant marble
saints ever want to
play chess.
The floor
of the portico is
by the indefatigable Bernini,
embedded with the giant
coat of arms of John
XXIII by Manzu to commemorate
the Second Vatican Council
of 1962.
The Pieta
of Michelangelo in Saint
Peter's Basilica
The best
work Of art is right in
front, in the first chapel
an the right: Michelangelo's
famous Pieta, now restored
and hard to see behind the
glass that protects it from
future madmen.
Finished
in 1499, when he was only
25, the statue helped make
Michelangelo's reputation.
Its smooth
and elegant figures, with
the realities of death and
grief sublimated an same
ethereal plane known only
to saints and artists, marked
a turning paint in religious
art-from here, the beautiful,
unreal art of the religious
Baroque was the logical
next step. The Pieta is
the only work Michelangelo
ever signed ; he added it
after overhearing a group
Of tourists from Milan who
thought the Pieta
was the work ,Of a fellow
Milanese.
Michelangelo
sculpted the Pieta far the
French ambassador; significantly,
none , Of the art made to
order far St Peter's
can match it.
By the
time the basilica was finished,
the great artists of
the Renaissance were
dead, and whatever glories
they may have contributed
have been replaced by assembly-line
Baroque statues and huge
Caunter-Refarmatian paintings,
in turn replaced by 'mare
eternal mosaic copies.
Ancient
Necropolis of St Peter's
In 1939,
when Pius XII ordered
the Sanpietrini to
lower the floor of the
Sacred Grottoes and
prepare a tomb for Pius
Xl, the workmen discovered
not only the floor of
the Constantinian Basilica,
but below this, signs of
an ancient tomb.
Although
its existence has been documented
since Bramante's day,
Pius XII was the
first pope to consent to
an exploration of the area
(previous popes had superstitiously
feared to disturb the bones,
or worse yet, to learn that
the Saracens in 846
had stolen St Peter's
relics after all).
All during
the war, the secret
excavations continued, uncovering
one of the most remarkable
sights in all Rome:
the Ancient Necropolis
of St Peter's, a
pristine street of pagan
and early Christian tombs
built around that of
the Apostle.
To book Museums Tickets
and
tours:
official TOUR COMPANY OF
ROME AND Vatican city
www.tourinrome.com
www.vaticanguidedtour.com
info@romeinformation.info
Suggested accommodations
in Rome with special offers
B&B near the Coliseum
www.domuscaracalla.com
Special offers 2010 !
Special apartment in the
city centre of Rome - in
the Jewish Ghetto and Trastevere
www.specialromeapartment.com
www.residenzasantamaria.com
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