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ITALY 131

ST. PETER KEY DATES
AD64 324 1506 1546 1980
One of the most important
and revered saints, Peter St. Peter is Roman Emperor Pope Julius II Michelangelo The properties
was one of the first two crucified and Constantine lays the first is appointed of the Holy See ITALY
disciples of Christ. Peter's buried in builds a basilica stone of a chief architect. join the list of
apostolate brought him to Rome. CNer the tomb new basilica. UNESCO World
of St. Peter. Heritage Sites.
Rome in AD 44, where he •.Naples
established the Church TYRRHENIAN
SEA
of Rome. The saint is
traditionally associated with HISTORICAL PLAN OF STPETER'S BASILICA ME DITE RRA NEAN 5£A IONIAN
two keys, one for Earth SEA
and one for heaven. St. Peter was buried in AD 64 in a
necropolis near his crucifixion site in
the Circus of Nero. Constantine built MICHELANGELO
a basilica on the burial site in 324.
~ Grottoes In the 15th century, the old church The great Florentine artist, sculptor, architect,
A fragment of a 13th- was found to be unsafe and had to poet, and engineer Michel angelo Buonarroti
century mosaic by G iotto, be demolished. It was rebuilt in the (1475--1564) was one of the towering figures
salvaged from the old Fa~de Statues 16th and 17th centuries. By 1614, the of the Renaissance. One of his very early
basilica, can be lou nd The fa~ade is topped by fa~ade was ready, and in 1626 the
in the Grottoes, where 13 travertine stone statues new church was consecrated. works, the Pieta, a technically accomplished
many popes are buried. depicting Christ, John 0 Circus of Ne10 masterpiece produced when he was only 2 5,
KEY
I Statue of St Peter the Apostles. 0 Coffitantinian he was primarily a sculptor, but in 1508 he
is in S t Peter's Basilica. Michelangelo felt that
the Baptist, and 11 of
The extended foot of this
accepted Pope Julius ll's commission to paint
~:I] Renaissance
13th-century bronze statue
has worn thin and shiny
When it was com pi eted, in 1512, it was
from the touch of pilgrims the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
over the centuries. immediately hailed as a masterpiece of the age.
In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed chief
~ Michelangelo's
Pie til Fa~ade by Carlo architect of St. Peter's Basilica and devoted the
Maderno (1614) last decades of his life to the building.
GIANLORENZO BERNINI
This Italian sculptor, architect, set designer,
and painter was the outstanding figure of
the Baroque era in Italy. Born in Naples in
1598, the son of a sculptor, the young Bernini
was quickly acknowledged as having a
precocious talent for marble. He became
the favorite architect, sculptor, and town
planner to three successive popes, and
transformed the look of Rome with his
churches, pal aces, piazzas, statues, and
fountains. He worked on various parts of
A Fila rete Doors StPeter's Basilica for more than 57 years.
These bronze doors from the
old basilica were decorated RENAISSANCE STYLE
with biblical reliefs by Filarete
between 1439 and 1445. Brunelleschi' s design for the Ospedale degli
Innocenti (1419-24) in Florence, with its
Classically inspired slender columns and
semi circular arches, ushered in a new era of
architecture in Italy. In the following decades,
Holy Door
This entrance is only the Renaissance style spread to other urban
used in Holy Years. centers in Italy. The vanguard of the movement
relocated to Rome in the late 15th and early
16th centuries. By this point, Renaissance styles
had reached most of Europe and even as far
as Moscow, via Venice. The Renaissance (or
Main entrance "rebirth") in building design was intended to be
rational and humane. Taking i nspir ati on from
the principal elements of architecture-square,
cube, circle, and sphere-architects began to
plan buildings according to mathematical
proportions. Streets were widened and planning
led to a focus on monuments and fountains.