Saint Peter's Basilica

Saint Peter's Basilica is a large Renaissance church located in Vatican City, the seat of the Roman Catholic Church and an independent country within Rome, Italy. The basilica is one of the largest Christian churches in the world and one of the Catholic Church's four major basilicas.

Saint Peter's Basilica is the second such church to stand in its current location. The Old Saint Peter's Basilica, built in the 300s CE, was demolished and rebuilt on the orders of Pope Julius II in the early sixteenth century. The current Saint Peter's Basilica was constructed from 1506 to 1626 from the efforts of such Renaissance architects and artists as Donato Bramante, Raphael, and Michelangelo. The basilica is so named due to its location directly over the alleged grave of Saint Peter, the first pope, in the catacombs below the church. Millions of tourists visit Saint Peter's Basilica every year in the twenty-first century.

Background

The site of Saint Peter's Basilica originally served as the Circus of Nero, the large open-air racetrack used by the Roman emperor Nero for entertainment such as chariot races. Nero also staged Christian martyrdoms in the circus, and Peter, one of Jesus's twelve original apostles and the first pope of the Roman Catholic Church, is believed to have been crucified upside down there in about 64 CE. His body was buried in a shallow grave in a nearby necropolis, or burial ground.

In about 319 CE, the Roman emperor Constantine, the first Christian to hold this title, began constructing a basilica directly over the necropolis and the site where Peter was alleged to be buried. Constantine's workers dug about a million tons of ground to prepare the foundations of the church. They worked for the next forty years and completed what later became known as Old Saint Peter's Basilica in about 349 CE. The grandiose basilica stood in Rome for more than 1,100 years. Charlemagne was crowned the Holy Roman emperor in the church on Christmas Day of 800 CE.

Constantine's basilica had fallen into disrepair by the 1300s. Over the next two centuries, Catholic authorities deliberated about whether to begin the daunting project of repairing the church or destroying and rebuilding it. Finally, in the early 1500s, the newly elected Pope Julius II declared the basilica could not be saved and would be destroyed and reconstructed.

Overview

Construction of the new basilica began in 1506. Like its predecessor, the church was to be a grand structure that still preserved the underground crypts where Peter and numerous other popes were buried. The Catholic Church employed a variety of master architects and artists to assist in building and decorating the basilica throughout its 120-year construction.

Architect Donato Bramante designed the original plans for the church. His layout called for the basilica's floorplan to be a large square featuring aisles in the shape of a Greek cross, or one with four arms of equal length. In each of the church's four corners would be an apse, a large recess in a wall that features a semicircular domed ceiling. High above the center of the floor would be a dome. To Bramante, the square represented Earth, the four apses symbolized the four corners of the world, and the dome represented heaven.

Bramante's death in 1514 left artist and architect Raphael to continue overseeing the project. Raphael produced a new plan that called for the church to have a longitudinal, or elongated, design instead of a cubed one. However, Raphael died in 1520, leaving Baldassare Peruzzi and later Michelangelo to take his place. Michelangelo retained Bramante's cubed design but added numerous ledges, recesses, and other niches throughout the church's interior. Michelangelo died in 1564, and his student Giacomo della Porta later completed the basilica's dome. In the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century, architect Carlo Maderno extended the church to reflect Raphael's longitudinal design. In 1612, now working in the new Baroque architectural style, Maderno completed the church's façade, which evoked classical Roman elements such as columns and perfect symmetry. Saint Peter's Basilica was completed in November of 1626.

The massive interior of the church is richly decorated with statues, mosaics on the walls and ceilings, and high windows designed to let in sunlight. Visitors to Saint Peter's Basilica can explore the building's multiple aisles, chapels, and alcoves, most of which contain elaborate works of art. Michelangelo's Pietà, for instance, is housed behind protective glass in the basilica. The marble sculpture depicts Mary holding the body of Jesus after his death. Over the church's altar, directly beneath the domed ceiling, is Saint Peter's Baldachin, a bronze canopy sculpted in the early seventeenth century by Baroque sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Visitors can climb a narrow staircase or take an elevator to the top of the dome, where they can look out on Saint Peter's Square and the rest of Vatican City. Saint Peter's Square, the large open space adjoining the basilica, was also designed by Bernini. The 140 statues of saints atop the square's walls are meant to summon feelings of awe as one observes the basilica.

Only the pope may celebrate mass in Saint Peter's Basilica. In Jubilee Years, which traditionally occur once every twenty-five years, the pope opens the church's holy door, which otherwise remains cemented closed. Popes in the twenty-first century claim that Catholics who pass through the doorway are filled with God's love.

Saint Peter's Basilica sits atop two subterranean levels. The first is known as the Vatican Grottos. It contains the buried remains of nearly one hundred popes and various other historical figures, such as the medieval Holy Roman emperor Otto II. Beneath the grottos is the Vatican Necropolis, the ancient burial ground network containing the frescoed tombs of anonymous pagans and Christians from the first few centuries CE. The necropolis is believed to be the site where Saint Peter was buried. Millions of tourists visit Saint Peter's Basilica every year.

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