The Vatican City: The Wonders of the Papal State.
The Vatican City is just a few kilometres from the apartments of Palazzo Olivia. It can be reached on foot by following an itinerary that will lead you to some of Rome’s most beautiful sights, or by the city’s public transport. The Vatican City includes Monte Mario to the North and Gianicolo to the South.
In ancient times, the area that is currently the small Vatican State was called Ager Vaticanus and was the site of a circus and Nero’s gardens.
The city contains extremely important architectural and artistic heritage and has been an independent state since 1929, the year in which the Lateran Treaty was stipulated between the Holy See and the Italian State. The city has only a few hundred inhabitants and stretches from Via di Porta Angelica, Piazza del Risorgimento, Via Leone IV, Viale Vaticano, Via della Sagrestia and St. Peter’s Square. The Pope, as well as being head of the Apostolic Roman Catholic Church, has full legislative, executive, and judicial powers. The Vatican City is totally independent from the Italian State, but maintains an extremely close relationship. It has its own stamps, a railway connected to that of Italy and a famous publication, the Osservatore Romano, which is distributed all over Italy.
The city also has its own security forces (once called the Pope’s carabinieri) and a police force, in the form of the famous “Swiss Guards”, who have protected the Pope since the fifteen hundreds and wear an ancient uniform probably designed by Michelangelo.
St. Peter’s Square
This is an extremely suggestive sacred place, with a profound religious and symbolic connotation. St. Peter’s Square is perhaps the most famous square in the world. It has welcomed countless pilgrims visiting St. Peter’s Basilica since the Middle Ages. It is the centre of Christianity and is a vital part of the city’s religious life. The square was constructed on the area of the ancient Vatican (or Nero’s) Circus, which was in reality built by Caligula. A testimony to this is the so-called Vatican Obelisk, transported there in 37 A.D. from Alexandria, Egypt, where it adorned Cesar’s Forum. This, known in the Middle Ages as aguglia (the Eagle), remained for a long time besides the basilica until, in 1586, Sixtus V charged Domenico Fontana to move it to its present site, to the right of which Carlo Maderno created a fountain in 1613 at the behest of Paul V. More than half a century later another symmetrical one, built by Carlo Fontana, was added.
Under Sixtus V, the original bronze globe that adorned the obelisk (today at the Capitoline Museums) and which was believed to contain the ashes of Cesar, was substituted by his family emblem, the mountains and a star surmounted by a crucifix, in which is a fragment of the True Cross of Christ. In the mid-XVII century, the monumental work that adorned St. Peter’s Church found a splendid position in the square in front, built by Gian Lorenzo Bernini between 1656 and 1667. The triumphant spectacle that this architectural genius lavished on the execution of this immense masterpiece was not merely dictated by aesthetic tastes, but was full of deep symbolic meaning; so much so that the square itself can be interpreted as a monumental allegory. The great portico is a symbolic ‘embrace’ on the part of the Church that reaches out to welcome and protect the faithful from all over the world both in this life and in the life to come. The same elliptical space (240 metres wide), theatrically defined by two semi-circles, has a multitude of symbolic meanings.
St. Peter’s Basilica
The site of St. Peter’s Basilica was occupied in ancient times by Nero’s Circus, between the Tevere (Tiber), the Gianicolo and Monte Vaticano and was the site where the chief Apostle Peter was martyred and buried. Pope Anacletus had already erected a small basilica or sacellum ad corpus, but in 324 the Emperor Constantine substituted this presumably modest shrine with a typically Constantinian basilica, similar to other churches built in Rome in that period. The primitive St. Peter’s was completed by his son, Constans, in 349 and was enriched over the centuries by donations and work by the pontiffs and generous princes. In this Constantinian basilica in 800 Charlemagne received the crown from the hands of Leo III and after him came the emperors Lothair, Louis II and Frederick III.
However, a thousand years after its foundation, St. Peter’s was in ruin and it was Nicholas V, on the suggestion of , Leon Battista Alberti and designs by Bernardo Rossellino, who began to renovate and enlarge the basilica. Some parts of the building were demolished and work began on the new apse. These were, however, soon interrupted due to the death of Nicholas V. Work did not begin again until 1506, with Pope Julius II della Rovere. Most of the ancient church was demolished by Bramante (who thus earned the title of "master of the ruins").
After the death of Carlo Maderno in 1629, the next director of work, Gianlorenzo Bernini, took some decisive action on the basilica. He gave the building its prevalently Baroque character, for example in the decorative work on the central and lateral naves, the erection of the famous bronze baldachin (begun in 1624 and inaugurated on St. Peter’s day in 1633)
, the decoration of the pillars of the cupola with four large statues and the Chair of St. Peter at the bottom of the apse. The latter is one of one of Bernini’s magnificent inventions – a true wonder that houses an ancient wooden chair, which tradition held was used by the Apostle Peter. Renovation work on St. Peter’s Square, again by Bernini, dates back to Pope Alexander VII (who also financed the work on the Chair) and under Clement X the architect designed and completed the little round temple that is the tabernacle of the Chapel of the Sacrament.
A large number of splendid chapels are scattered around the perimeter of the basilica. For example, the Chapel of the Pietà, the Chapel of Saint Sebastian (which also houses a monument to Pope Pius XII by Francesco Messina) and the more famous Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament; the Gregorian Chapel (by Giacomo Della Porta), the Chapel of the Dove, the Clementine Chapel (which takes its name from Pope Clement VIII), the sumptuous Choir Chapel and, finally the Chapel of the Presentation, with its recent monument to Pope John XXIII, by Emilio Greco.
[Text taken from: Roma e il Vaticano - Guida completa alla Città Eterna (Bonechi).]
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