THE OCTOGONAL or BELVEDERE COURTYARD

The octagonal Courtyard of Belvedere was the center of the villa, built by Bramante for Pope Innocent VIII at the end of the fifteenth century. In one corner is the Group of Laocoon; it was found in the RUINS OF Nero's Golden House (Domus Aurea), near the Colosseum in the XV century. The sculpture represents the Trojan priest, punished by the gods, for the warning he gave his townsmen about the horse of Troy. The legend says that two serpents came from the sea and killed Laocoon and his two children. This is a remarkable work by Agesandros and his sons, Athenodoros and Polidoros of Rhodes, from the first century B.C. Rhodes was, with Alexandria in Egypt and Ephesus in Turkey, one of the three great centers of art around of the Mediterranean during the first century B.C. The art of this period is extremely realistic and the Laocoon group is the most representative of it, with the desperate struggle of the priest, in the moment of agony, his muscles exaggeratedly tense, his sons, one already dying, the other turning his head hopelessly towards his father.

In another corner is the Apollo Belvedere, a statue believed to be a copy from a bronze masterpiece by the Greek sculptor Leochares of the IV century B.C. The figure of the god is tall, athletic and slender; he steps forward to see if the arrow he has just thrown has met its mark. Apollo was also the god defender and bringer of peace. This statue was found at Grottaferrata in the fifteenth century.

In the Room of Animals are numerous works from different times, in which animals play a role. There is a copy of the Meleager by Skopas, and the group of Mithras, the Persian god sacrificing the bull to the Sun.

St. Peter's Basilica -Part IV

The monument on the left of the Cattedra, of Paul III, is by Guglielmo della Porta. These are two of the finest papal monuments in the church. Encased in Bernini's bronze throne is a wooden chair with ivory ornamentation which according to tradition was the one used by St. Peter. A recent examination of the chair proved this to be the one donated to Pope John VII in 875, by the Carolingian King Charles II the Bald, when he was crowned in St. Peter's on Dec. 25th of that year. It dates from the ninth century.

Crossing the basilica, we traverse the left transept, noting on the right the monument of Alexander VII by Bernini, which he made when he was almost eighty years old, the last work of this indefatigable genius.

Then we come to the Clementina Chapel where there is the monument of Pius VII by the Danish sculptor Thorvaldsen, the only monument in the church by a non-Catholic artist.

Before entering the left aisle, immediately on the left, is a mosaic reproduction of the Transfiguration of Raphael, his last work which he left unfinished, and which his disciple Giulio Romano completed. The original is in the Pinacoteca, the Vatican picture gallery. Entering the left aisle of the right is the monument to the pope who only reigned 24 days, Leo XI Medici, by Algardi, XVII century. A reference to his very short reign are the roses on the plinth and the words SIC FLORUIT.

Continuing towards the exit, immediately on the right we find the rich Choir Chapel; above the altar is the lovely mosaic picture of the Immaculate Conception. After the chapel come next two monuments set into the wall, face to face: Innocent VIII, executed by Pollaiolo in the late XV century, and St. Pius X, whose remains are preserved under the altar of the next chapel.

Embedded into the following pillar, to the left, is the monument by Antonio Canova to James III Stuart, the old pretender and his children. The last chapel, the Baptistery, has a baptismal font formed by the cover of an ancient porphyry sarcophagus, probably from Emperor Hadrian's tomb.

St. Peter's Basilica -Part III

Proceeding to the High Altar, on the right, against one of the four immense piers supporting the dome, is the noble statue in bronze of St. Peter enthroned. This is the work of the 13th century Florentine sculptor, Arnolfo di Cambio.

When you stand beneath the vastness of the dome, you see how everything else is dwarfed in sight, even the bronze canopy by Bernini which has the height of a five-storey building. We-ll note, for instance, that St. Mark's pen, in one of the roundels of the pendentives, is five feet. Beneath the roundels with the mosaic pictures of the four Evangelistsare the balconies, decorated with the spiral columns from the canopy of the old St. Peter's, which gave Bernini the idea for his bronze canopy. At Easter the principal relics kept in St. Peter's are exposed from these balconies. They are: the fragment of the Sacred Lance, with which St. Longinus pierced the side of Christ while He was hanging on the Cross, the statue of this Saint, by Bernini, is at the base of the pier; above the statue of St. Andrew the skull of the saint. The relics kept in the other two piers are: a fragment of the true Cross and the veil of St. Veronica, with the statues of St. Helena and St. Veronica.

Underneath the dome and Bernini's canopy, is the main altar, at which only the Pope has the privilege of celebrating Mass. In front of the altar is the lowered part known as The Confession.

Directly beneath the main altar, closed by a gilded grill, is the Niche of the Pallia, built in the sxth century, where the Pallium, a long strip-like vestment, was placed before being bestowed on the newly-appointed archbishops.

Beyond the canopy is the part of the church used for the most important ceremonies, such as canonizations, beatifications, coronations of the new pope, etc. At the end of the absis are two masterpieces by Bernini: the bronze one is Cattedra, the Bishop's chair, held by four Church Fathers: St. Ambrose and St. Augustine in front representing the Latin Church, St. Athanasius and St. John Chrysostom, representing the Greek Church; above the Cattedra is the Glory of the Holly Spirit. The other, to the right of the Cattedra, is the monument to the Pope Urban VIII.

St. Peter's Basilica - Part II

All the appears to be painting in St. Peter's, is in fact mosaic work, from the mosaic studio in the Vatican, which is the only place in the world where a painting can be reproduced in mosaic with perfect exactness. They use mainly composition stone.

Continuing along the right aisle and immediately on the right is the Chapel of the Crucifix, containing a XII century crucifix, ascribed to Cavallini. Opposite the chapel of the Crucifix is the memorial to Christina of Sweden by C. Fontana, one of the few women buried in St. Peter's. She abdicated and converted to Catholicism, which her father, Gustavus Adolphus, had fought against during the Thirty Years War and she came to Rome in 1655. Her grave is in the crypt underneath the church. In the next chapel is the mosaic reproduction of the Martyrdom of Sebastian by Domenichino, XVII century. In a open glass casket underneath the altar lies the body of Blessed (Beatus) Innocent XI, XVII century, his face and his hands are covered with silver.

On the left of it is the fine bronze statue of Pope Pius XII by Messina, 1964. In the same aisle is the splendid Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament; above the altar is the glided bronze pyx by Bernini, inspired by the Tempietto di Bramante in the Church of St. Peter's in Montorio. Behind the altar is the only oil-painting of the whole Church: the Trinity, by Pietru da Cortona. Beyond the chapel, on the right, is the monument to Pope Gregory XIII, by Rusconi, XVII century, the pope who reformed the old Roman Julian Calendar. There is a relief recaling this event which took place is 1582.

We return to the central nave and we find ourselves in the part of the Basilica built by Michelangelo. He planned the church in the form of a Greek Cross, the embodiment of the symbol of the Cross, while the imens dome suggests the idea of the sky being inseparable from the Cross. Almost fifty years after he had carved the Pieta for the old St. Peter's, Michelangelo, most reluctantly, took in hand his greatest architectural work, which was to be the culmination of his extraordinary life. However, he didn't live to see his dome completed; at the time of his death he had raised it to the height of the drum. Although Della Porta and Maderna altered Michelangelo's original plan, we can still say that this is his greatest work as an architect.

St. Peter's Basilica -Part I

Pope Sylvester I, in the year 326 A.D., inaugurated the basilica, built by Emperor Constantine over the grave of St. Peter. The Apostle was martyred in the Circus of Nero in 64 or 67 A.D., and this Circus had always been located where the curch stands, until recent excavations proved that St. Peter's foundations were laid on virgin soil. This new fact has posed an archaeological question to which we do not as yet have the answer. The excavations also proved that the main altar of the church stands right over the grave of St. Peter. During the public audience of June 26th 1968, Pope Paul VI announced that the relics of St. Peter had been identified with consistent archaeological evidence. This was the result of the researches which started in 1939 under Pope Pius XII. The present church was started by Pope Julius II in 1506, and during the 120 years of reconstruction, almost all the major architects of Renaissance contributed in designing and redesigning it.

Bramante was the first, and he also started the ruthless destruction of the old church. The new one he planned in the form of a Greek cross, but both Julius II and Bramante died after a few years, and owing to the political and economic situation of the papacy, the gigantic undertaking didn't make much progress until the 71-years-old Michelangelo, in 1546, was named architect-in-chief by Pope Paul III.

Michelangelo's final project was altered by Della Porta, who completed the Dome, and Carlo Maderno, who added the nave and the facade, and at Pope Paul V's command, changed the church into the form of a Latin cross. The new Basilica was consecrated on November 18th, 1626. Through the great central portal, under the Loggia of Benediction, from which the newly-elected Pope bestows his blessing, we enter the portico with the five bronze doors of the church. The central one was made for the old St. Peter's in 1445 by Filarete from Florence. At the extreme right is the Holly Door which is only opened every 25 years for the Jubilee Year.

When you are finally inside St. Peter's, you cannot at first sight appreciate its magnitude, for your sense of proportion is deceived by the scale of the various parts; you are more and more overwhelmed as you proceed and compare with life-size. A few figures are in any case eloquent; the length including the portico is 210 meters; the vault is 44 meters; and the far end of the central nave, the dove of the Holly Spirit has a wingspan of 1,5 meters. The church has a standing capacity of 60.000 people. Another idea of its size is given by the brass tablets on the floor of the central nave, with the comparative length of the greatest cathedrals in the world; second largest is St. Paul in London.

We begin our tour of the Church from the Chapel of the Pieta, where the finest sculpture of the whole church is kept. The Pieta (the Pity) by Michelangelo, which he made when he was only 24, represents the sorrow of the Madonna bolding her dead Son and Her acceptance of the will of God. It is the masterpiece of Michelangelo's youth, still under the influence of Florentine sculpture, and it is the only statue he ever signed. His name is to be found on the sash across the Madonna's breast. The Chapel of the Pieta was originally dedicated to the Crucifixion; on the empty cross we read the four letters (INRI) standing for Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum, the inscription put on the Cross to deride Christ. On the ceiling above the Pieta is the only fresco painting in the church, the Triumph of the Cross by Lanfranco, XVII century.

St. Peter's Square

Leading to St. Peter's Square is the street of Conciliation; this new, direct, monumental approach to the Vatican, from Rome, was called Conciliation to comemorate the signing of the Lateran Pact in 1929, and was inaugurated in 1950 on the ocassion of the Jubilee Year.

We are welcomed by the magnificent Piazza San Pietro, St. Peters Square, the arhitectural masterpiece by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. 284 Tuscan columns arranged in a quadruple row and 89 pillars from the two huge semicircles enclosing it. The entablature is crowned by 140 statues of saints and the large coats of arms of Pope Alexander VII Chigi, who commisioned the work.

This Piazza was built in a short time (between 1655 and 1667) mainly because the arhitectural project was overseen by Bernini himself. The oldest monument in the square is the monolithic Egyptian obelisk, which stands in the center. Caligula had brought it to Rome to decorate his Circus and near it St. Peter was probably crucified with his had down.

In 1586 under Sixtus V obelisc was re-erected on its present site and later upon it was placed the emblem of the Chigi Pope Alexander VII, the five small mounts and the star in bronze, this device containing a relic of the Cross.The two beautiful fountains were built at different times: the one of the right by Maderno, and the other by Bernini, in 1677, which was the last monument put within the colonade.

Set into the paving, between the fountains and the obelisk, are two round stone slabs; standing on either of these and observing the colonade, you have the impression that St. Peter's Square is encircled by a single row of columns instead of a quadruple one.

Visitors and Romans gather every Sunday on St. Peter's Square for the Pope's blessing and particularly on January 1 st, Palm Sunday and, of course, on Easter Sunday and Christmas.

Castel Sant'Angelo

Rome, the great witness to a past rich in history, the great collection of artistic masterpieces wich together represent the most complet and unmatchable expression of man. The ruins, scattered around everywhere, speak to us of the happy times characterised by the cult of power and military glory, but mitigated by refined artistic taste.

Of the precious architectures of the past, one of the most majestic and imposing is undoubtedly the " Mole Adriana" or " Hadrianeum", more commonly known as " Castel Sant'Angelo".The construction of the magnificent mausoleum intended by the Emperor Hadrian as a sepulchre for himself and his successors, was began in 124 A.D. and was completed one year after the death of Antoninus Pius in 139 A.D. The members of the imperial family from Hadrian to Caracalla, killed in 217, were buried in the Mausoleum. In 271 it was included in the Aurelian wall, and in 410 it was sacked by the Goths of Alaric. It was first used as a fortress during the siege of Vitigis, another king of the Goths. During the XV and XVI centuries it took on its present appearance; and as it was built as a refuge for the Popes, their apartments were decoratedby the several of the same artists who worked in the Vatican. In case of danger, the Popes could reach it directly from the Vatican, through a covered corridor called the Passetto.

The name of Castel Sant'Angelo is derived from the vision of Pope Gregory I who in 590 led a procession to petition God to stop a plague; while crossing the bridge he saw on top of the fortress the Archangel Michael sheathing a flaming sword, the divine signal that the pestilence was over.

This place has also acquired a sinister fameas a state prison, you have its parallel in the Tower of London; many visitors will recall Castel Sant'Angelo from the opera La Tosca in wich it appears in the third act as a prison.