Inside History
St Peter’s Basilica
Vatican City 1506-1626 CE
When Rome was decimated by the Great Fire of 64 CE, the emperor Nero, desperate for a scapegoat, blamed the disaster on the emerging Christian community. Among those who perished in his circus executions was St Peter. Christ’s disciple and the first Bishop of Rome. After three centuries of struggle, the Christians were finally granted their freedom under Constantine, who went on to build a magnificent basilica on St Peter’s tomb.
However, by 1500, after numerous sackings and calamities, the once-magnificent basilica lay in ruin, and Pope Julius II decided it was time to replace it with an even more spectacular building. Under the direction of architect Donato Bramante, the old walls were spectacularly pulled down, and a new foundation stone laid in 1506. Bramante designed his basilica in the form of a Greek Cross, and began excavating and erecting four structural piers to support the dome.
After the deaths of Julius in 1513 and Bramante the following year, the work continued sporadically under various popes and architects. The genius Michelangelo was already in his 70s when he reluctantly took over the project, “without pay and without reward”, breathing some much-needed clarity and vigour into it over the next 18 years.
While Giacomo Della Porta completed the dome in 1590, it was Carlo Maderno who won a competition in 1607 to build the façade – tearing down the front wall and extending its eastern end, transforming it into a Latin Cross.
The project was finally completed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who added its colonnades, before finally being consecrated in 1626 – 1,300 years after its first incarnation. The centrepiece at the very heart of Christendom, St Peter’s had an enormous impact on art and architecture, with masters travelling from across the world to study it. The largest church in the world to this day, it remains a crucial Christian pilgrimage site, capable of hosting 15,000 worshippers inside, and a further 80,000 in the Square beyond.