St. Peter's Square (, ) is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in

Vatican City Vatican City, officially the Vatican City State (; ), is a Landlocked country, landlocked sovereign state and city-state; it is enclaved within Rome, the capital city of Italy and Bishop of Rome, seat of the Catholic Church. It became inde ...

, the papal enclave in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, directly west of the neighborhood (

rione A (; : , ) is an administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions () and provinces (). The can also have the title of (). Formed a ...

) of Borgo. Both the square and the basilica are named after Saint Peter, an apostle of

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

whom Catholics consider the first

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

. At the centre of the square is the Vatican obelisk, an ancient Egyptian obelisk erected at the current site in 1586. Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the square almost 100 years later, including the massive Tuscan colonnades, four columns deep, which embrace visitors in "the maternal arms of Mother Church". A granite fountain constructed by Bernini in 1675 matches another fountain designed by Carlo Maderno in 1613.

History

The open space which lies before the basilica was redesigned by Gian Lorenzo Bernini from 1656 to 1667, under the direction of Pope Alexander VII, as an appropriate forecourt, designed "so that the greatest number of people could see the Pope give his blessing, either from the middle of the façade of the church or from a window in the Vatican Palace". Bernini had been working on the interior of St. Peter's for decades; now he gave order to the space with his renowned colonnades, using a Tuscan order, to avoid competing with the palace-like façade by Carlo Maderno, but he employed it on an unprecedented colossal scale to suit the space and evoke a sense of awe. There were many constraints from existing structures (''illustration, right''). The massed accretions of the Vatican Palace crowded the space to the right of the basilica's façade; the structures needed to be masked without obscuring the papal apartments. The Vatican obelisk marked a centre, and a granite fountain by Maderno stood to one side: Bernini made the fountain appear to be one of the foci of the ovato tondo embraced by his colonnades. In architecture, an "ovato tondo" is an oval shape that is also circular. It is often used to create a large, enclosed space with an oval shape. In 1675, Bernini eventually matched Maderno's fountain on the other side just five years before his death. The trapezoidal shape of the piazza, which creates a heightened perspective for a visitor leaving the basilica and has been praised as a masterstroke of

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

theater (''illustration, below right''), is largely a product of site constraints. According to the Lateran Treaty the area of St. Peter's Square is subject to the authority of Italian police for crowd control even though it is a part of the Vatican state.

Colonnades

The colossal Tuscan colonnades, four columns deep, frame the trapezoidal entrance to the basilica and the massive elliptical area which precedes it. The ovato tondo's long axis, parallel to the basilica's façade, creates a pause in the sequence of forward movements that is characteristic of a Baroque monumental approach. The colonnades define the piazza. The elliptical center of the piazza, which contrasts with the trapezoidal entrance, encloses the visitor with "the maternal arms of Mother Church" in Bernini's expression. On the south side, the colonnades define and formalize the space, with the Barberini Gardens still rising to a skyline of umbrella pines. On the north side, the colonnade masks an assortment of Vatican structures; the upper stories of the Vatican Palace rise above.

Obelisk

At the center of the ''ovato tondo'' stands the Vatican obelisk, an uninscribed Egyptian obelisk of red

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

, tall, supported on bronze lions and surmounted by the Chigi arms in bronze, in all to the

cross A cross is a religious symbol consisting of two Intersection (set theory), intersecting Line (geometry), lines, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of t ...

on its top. The obelisk was originally erected in Heliopolis, Egypt, by an unknown pharaoh. The Emperor Augustus had the obelisk moved to the Julian Forum of

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

, where it stood until AD 37, when

Caligula Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), also called Gaius and Caligula (), was Roman emperor from AD 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the Roman general Germanicus and Augustus' granddaughter Ag ...

ordered the forum demolished and the obelisk transferred to Rome. He had it placed on the spina which ran along the center of the Circus of Nero. It was moved to its current site in 1586 by the engineer-architect Domenico Fontana under the direction of Pope Sixtus V; the engineering feat of re-erecting its vast weight was memorialized in a suite of engravings. The obelisk is the only obelisk in Rome that has not toppled since antiquity. During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, the gilt ball atop the obelisk was believed to contain the ashes of

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...

.Touring Club Italiano, ''Roma e Dintorni'', which furnishes the statistics in these notes. Fontana later removed the ancient metal ball, now in a Roman museum, and found only dust inside; Christopher Hibbert, however, writes that the ball was found to be solid. Though Bernini had no influence in the erection of the obelisk, he did use it as the centerpiece of his magnificent piazza, and added the Chigi arms to the top in honor of his patron, Alexander VII.

Paving

The paving is varied by radiating lines in travertine, to relieve what might otherwise be a sea of setts. In 1817 circular stones were set to mark the tip of the obelisk's shadow at noon as the sun entered each of the signs of the

zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north and south celestial latitude of the ecliptic – the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. Within this zodiac ...

, making the obelisk a gigantic

sundial A sundial is a horology, horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the position of the Sun, apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the ...

's gnomon. Below is a view of St. Peter's Square from the

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

(the top of the dome) which was taken in June 2007.

Spina

St. Peter's Square today can be reached from the Ponte Sant'Angelo along the grand approach of the Via della Conciliazione (in honor of the Lateran Treaty of 1929). The ''spina'' (median with buildings which divided the two roads of '' Borgo Vecchio'' and '' Borgo nuovo'') which once occupied this grand avenue leading to the square was demolished ceremonially by

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

himself on October 23, 1936, and was completely demolished by October 8, 1937, creating a long, wide vista from Castel Sant'Angelo to St. Peter's Basilica. After the spina, almost all the buildings south of the passetto were demolished between 1937 and 1950. This obliterated an important medieval and renaissance quarter of the city. Moreover, the demolition of the spina erased the characteristically

surprise of suddenly moving from a confined space to a much larger one; visitors today still get this effect when entering from '' Borgo Santo Spirito''. The Via della Conciliazione was completed in time for the Great Jubilee of 1950.

References

External links

stpetersbasilica.info
Pages for all 140 Colonnade Saints

Piazza of St. Peter's

engravings by Vasi

LacusCurtius.com, The Vatican obelisk, retrieved September 4, 2006

Legendary Rome

pbs.org, retrieved September 4, 2006

Bernini's Fountain {{Authority control Colonnades Gian Lorenzo Bernini buildings Italy–Vatican City border crossings National squares Vatican St. Peter's Basilica Tourist attractions in Vatican City