Bramante, pianta di San Pietro

Michelangelo, pianta di San Pietro

"Dome" by Michelangelo

At the beginning of the Early Middle Ages, the city of Rome went under a progressive decline, no longer the heart of a great Empire but the target for sacking by the Barbarians, by the Goths of Alarico (410) and by Vitige(537-538), by the Vandals of Genserico (445), who cut the aqueducts to bendthe city and finally by Totila (545-546).

One thousand years after its foundation, St. Peter's was going to ruin and Niccolò V° decided to undertook extensive works of restoration upon suggestion of Leon Battista Alberti and the project of Bernardo Rossellino. During the Renaissance in Italy and in Europe a new cultural and political climate was breathed, the rebuilding of Rome began (the urban situation of the period and the transformations) on the initiative of a new generation of popes who saw the building works as a means for reaching them asses that, Niccolò V°, the humanist pope, thought needed to be fascinated by grand works.

And so began the magnificent plan of Niccolò V, the restoration of ancient monuments that could be used as the infrastructure of the papal city: the Aurelian walls, the bridges, the Mausoleum of Hadrian transformed into a castle, several aqueducts, the reconstruction or repair of the forty basilicas making up the Holy Stations of pilgr image and finally the creation of a small city on the Vatican hill, seen as a holy city different from the profane city, on the other side of the Tiber and connected only via the bridge of Castel S.Angelo.
Niccolò V only managed to complete a small part of his project. The newbasilica was constructed by Giulio II della Rovere. Works began with the demolition of a large part of the old church, following the project of Bramante, with theintention of building a Greek cross plan edifice inspired by the Pantheon. The central pillars of the design by Bramante were created, with the largesupport arches of the dome, and the spaces created adjacent to the central part, then works stopped for 20 years. In 1527 there was the terrible sacking of Rome by the Lanzichenecchi.

The direction of works was then continued - with strange and recurring competition between Greek cross plan and Latin cross plan - by Frà Giocondo, Raffaello, Giuliano da Sangallo, Baldassarre Peruzzi, Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane and finally Michelangelo, who re-applied the design of Bramante, restructuring the smaller areas surrounding the central part and beginning the construction of the dome, which was only completed under Sixtus V in 1593 by Giacomo Della Porta and Domenico Fontana. Under the pontificate of Paul V the decision was made to restore the basilica with the definite return to the Latin cross plan. Architect Carlo Maderno added three chapels to each side of the building and conducted the naves up to the current façade (begun in 1607 terminated in 1614 and restored on the occasion of the Jubilee 2000). Maderno’s works was criticised by many because hiding from view the tambour, the risingeffect of the dome is dampened. The consecration of the new basilica was celebrated by Urban VIII in November 1626.

Upon conclusion of this grand work, the construction of the city was stopped, but the miraculous balance between ancient ruins and the Baroque scenes of papal Rome is so great that it has fascinated and enraptured great travellers such as Byron, Goethe, Stendhal...

Activitaly staff

> The Basilica of St. Peter - part I