Chiese e Basiliche
A tourist walking through the streets of Rome or who observes the city from on high, perhaps from the terrace of Castel Sant'Angelo of the top of the Vittoriale, will be amazed by the number of churches and basilicas that characterise the outline of the city. As well as a multitude of churches containing international art masterpieces (for example, Michelangelo’s Moses in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, to name just one), Rome also has four papal basilicas: St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, St. Paul’s Basilica outside the walls, the Basilica of St. John Lateran and the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (St. Mary Major). A visit to these four papal basilicas will give you an idea of the scale and magnificence of religious art and architecture, marvellous examples of which are to be found all over Italy.
St. Peter’s: the first architectural layout of what was to become the basilica of the founder of the Catholic Church, Peter, was built by the Emperor Constantine, around 320 A.D., on the site where the martyred saint was buried. The current structure began to take shape around 1450, when the design and reconstruction of the basilica complex was entrusted first to Bernardo Rossellino, then to Donato Bramante, then to Raphael and, finally, to Michelangelo. In 1620 Carlo Maderno completed the work with the addition of a massive travertine facade. On entering St.Peter’s one is surrounded by an environment of enormous proportions. There are 29 metres of bronze canopy created by Bernini that correspond to the place where St. Peter is buried, which only just manage to form a parameter that hints at the proportions of the cupola above. Inside the largest church in the world you can admire the moving delicacy of Michelangelo’s Pietà, the only work signed by the Master, Canova’s tomb of Clement XIII and the Navicella mosaic by Giotto.
San Pietro in Vincoli, also called the Basilica Eudoxiana, was built in 442 by Licinia Eudoxia, daughter of Thedosius II and wife of Valentinian III, as a place worthy of housing the vincula (the chains) that imprisoned St. Peter in the Mamertine prison. The interior of the Basilica is divided into three naves. In the left hand nave is a space housing what is known as Moses by Michelangelo, but is in reality what he created for the tomb of Julius II, after his initial magnificent and imposing design was revised several times, corrected and repeatedly abandoned.
Other churches worth a closer look include, without doubt, the Pantheon, one of the most incredible testimonies of architectural technique in ancient Rome. It was built at the behest of Marcus Agrippa in 25 B.C. as a temple dedicated to all the gods and rebuilt by the Emperor Hadrian around 120 A.D. It later became a Christian church in 609 and then a fortress in the Medieval period. The structure of the Pantheon features a spherical space inside a cylindrical section that determines the height of the floor and its diameter are perfectly equal. Inside the Pantheon are the tombs of important artists like Raphael and the tombs of all the sovereigns of Italy.
