St. Peter's in Vatican

St. Peter’s Square

(Piazza San Pietro). Beautiful elliptical square built (Pope Alexander VII Chigi - 1656, Bernini) to enhance and aggrandize the entrance of the Mother of all Churches completed a century earlier.

The approach was once through crowded alleys and then - what a surprise! - this large space dazzled the eye.

The small streets were torn down in the 1930s to push through the spacious Via della Conciliazione (to commemorate the reconciliation between Italy and the Vatican). What a pity, no more surprise.


Bernini's finest sculpture - and his largest: 262 yards wide, 284 Doric columns, each 64 feet high and in four serried rows.

It was here in 1980 that Ali Agca, a Turkish rightist, shot and severely wounded Pope John Paul II, while he was having a ride-about to salute his flock in his open Popemobile.




Be sure to stand on one of the 2 stone markers in the pavement near the fountains, where the optical illusion has the columns all lined up so that only the front ones are visible; the other 3 rows all disappear!

Obelisk

(Obelisco). Emperor Caligula brought it from Egypt (37 AD) to decorate a Circus for chariot races. Nero finished the Circus, the size of 2 football fields in length, situated on the left of St. Peter's Square. In 1586, when, under Pope Sixtus V's personal supervision, the architect Fontana moved the obelisk some 300 yards, it took five months!

Quite a feat it was to bring the obelisk safely to the center of the square: 900 men and 140 horses rolled it on wooden logs.

But, as they were pulling it upright, a boy saw that they needed to put water on the ropes otherwise they would snap.

So, despite an order from the Pope that anyone who spoke during the operation would be killed (there was even a gallows erected in the square) - he screamed out for water - and saved the day. The Pope saved his life.

Legend has it the golden ball maybe contains the ashes of Julius Caesar and the iron cross maybe has wooden chips of the True Cross.

Fountains

(1613). 46 feet high. Carlo Maderno's on the right.


Apostolic Palace