Renaissance architecture in italy

Prepared by:

ARCHT. JEYCARTER A. TILOY, UAP

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE 2

1. EARLY RENAISSANCE PERIOD (Beginning 15th Century)Period of learning, Transitional Period from Gothic to Renaissance.Designers were intent on the accurate transcription of Roman elements

2. HIGH RENAISSANCE or PROTO-BAROQUE (Late 15th Century – Early 16th Century)Renaissance became an individual style in its own rightPurist or Palladian, where Roman tradition was held in high respect (represented by Andrea Palladio) Proto-Baroque, where there was more confidence in using the acquired vocabulary freely (represented by Michelangelo) Mannerist, where practices which had no Roman precedent were interspersed with the usual buildings, or entire buildings were conceived in a non-Roman way Mannerists used architectural elements in a free, decorative and illogical way, unsanctioned by antique precedent

3.BAROQUE PERIOD (17TH Century – 1750)Architects worked with freedom and firmly-acquired knowledge. The true nature of Renaissance as a distinctive style began to emerge Baroque saw architecture, painting, sculpture and the minor arts being used in harmony to produce the unified whole

4. NEO-CLASSICAL OR ANTIQUARIAN PHASE (1750-1830)The phase in western European Renaissance architecture, 1750-1830, when renewed inspiration was sought from ancient Greek and Roman architecture.

his

tory

of arc

hitectu

re

FLORENCE

• Cities of Florence, Genoa, Milan - central, chief powers

of Italy

• Medici family - founded by Giovanni de Medici, who was

a commercial and political power

• Vitality of social life at every level

• Artists, who excelled in several arts, achieve high status

in society

• Craft guilds, with both religious and lay connotations,

directed activities of studios and workshops

• Renaissance had its birth in Florence

PALAZZI

• With the development of gunpowder, palace-type building

evolved, taking the place of fortified castles

• Built around a cortile or interior court, like medieval

cloister

• Ground floor and piano nobile

• Façade of massive, rugged, fortress-like character due to

use of rusticated masonry and wall angles called quoins

• Large windows unnecessary and unsuitable

• Low pitched roof covered by a balustrade, parapet or

boldly protruding roof cornices

Palazzo Strozzi

• By Benedetto da Majano

• Representative of the Florentine palace of that period

• Open cortile and piano nobile

• Astylar exterior of uniform rustication

• Cornice of 1/13 the height, 2.1 m projection

ROME

• Splendidly presented examples of High Renaissance and

Proto-baroque

• Famous architect is Donato Bramante

Tempietto in S. Pietro, Montorio

• Resembling small Roman circular temple with Doric

columns

• 4.5 m internal diameter

• Site where S. Peter was martyred

• Designed by Donato Bramante

• Dome on drum pierced with alternating windows and

shell-headed niches

Renaissance

PRE-HISTORIC

NEAR EAST

EGYPTIAN

GREEK

ROMAN

EARLY CHRISTIAN

BYZANTINE

ROMANESQUE

GOTHIC

RENAISSANCE

18TH-19TH C REVIVAL

20TH C MODERN

ISLAMIC

INDIAN

CHINESE & JAPANESE

FILIPINO

The Architects of the

Renaissance

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 –1446)

Michelozzo di Bartolomeo (1396-1472)

Leon Battista Alberti( 1404-1472)

Donato Bramante (1444 –1514)

Andrea Palladio (1508 –1580)

Giacomo da Vignola (1507 –1573)

Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475 – 1564)

Filippo Brunelleschi

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 1446) was one of the

foremost architects and engineers of the Italian

Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for his

discovery of perspective and for engineering the dome

of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments

also include other architectural works, sculpture,

mathematics, engineering and even ship design. His

principal surviving works are to be found

in Florence, Italy.

The Florence Cathedral dome (1436)

by Filippo Brunelleschi

Brunelleschi drew upon his

knowledge of ancient Roman

construction as well as lingering

Gothic traditions to produce an

innovative synthesis.

•Employed the Gothic pointed arch

cross section instead of a semi

circular one

•To reduce dead load, he created a

double shell as was done in the

Pantheon

•Employed 24 vertical ribs and 5

horizontal rings of sandstone, as

observed in the ruins of Roman

construction

•The cupola on top was a temple of

masonry acting as a weight on top of

the dome.

The Foundling Hospital, 1421-1444

by Filippo Brunelleschi

The Foundling Hospital is often

considered as the first building of the

Renaissance.

The Foundling Hospital, 1421-1444

by Filippo Brunelleschi

• Featured a continuous arcade

• At the hospital the arcading is three dimensional, creating a loggia with domed vaults in each bay.

• Use of Corinthian columns across its main facade and around an internal courtyard.

• The design was based in Roman architecture.

Other Brunelleschi projectsPazzi Chapel, 1460

The facade was inspired by the Roman

triumphal arch.

San Lorenzo, Florence, (1430-33)

This church is seen as one of the

milestones of Renaissance architecture,

with pietra serena or dark stone articulation.

The Basilica of Santa Maria del Santo Spirito

("St. Mary of the Holy Spirit"), 1481

San Spirito, begun 1445. The plan

played on the configurations of the

square. The current church was

constructed over the pre-existing ruins

of an Augustinian priory from the 13th

century, destroyed by a fire.

Michelozzo di

Bartolomeo

(1396-1472) Italian architect and sculptor.

Michelozzo Bartolomeo (1396-1472) and the Palazzo

Medici

Cosimo de Medici of

Florence

The Palazzo Medici is a Renaissance palace located in Florence.

• Bartolomeo was a student of Brunelleschi.

• The Palazzo was influenced by the Foundling Hospital.

• Used the arcaded courtyard of the hospital.

The Palazzo Medici, Florence 1444

•Rustication- stone blocks with deeply recessed chamfered joints

•Had three tiers of graduated textures, beginning with rock-faced stone at the street level and concluding with smooth ashlar at the third level below a 10-ft high cornice with modillions, egg and dart moldings and a dentil course.

•It was the first such cornice since ancient times.

•The building reflected Renaissance ideals of symmetry, the use of classical elements and careful use of mathematical proportions.

Leon Battista Alberti

(1404-1472)

Alberti was an Italian author,

artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, crypto

grapher and general Renaissance humanist polymath.

Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472)

•Was a classical theorist who saw architecture

as a way to address societal order.

•Alberti defined the Renaissance architect as a

universalist, an intellectual, a man of genius

and a consort to those in positions of power

and authority. He himself was a Renaissance

man.

•He worked in Rome after his studies in

Florence where he had many opportunities to

see the monuments of antiquities as well as

meet the artists who were visiting them.

•Alberti studied the writings of the classical

world like Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch and Pliny

the Elder.

•He wrote Della Pittura (On Painting) where it

included Brunelleschi’s theories of perspective

and De Re Aedificatoria (On Building), the

first architectural treatise of the Renaissance.

•The book was influenced by Vitruvius’ The

Ten Books of Architecture.

Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472)

The Palazzo Rucellai (1446-1451) was the first building to use the classical orders on a

Renaissance domestic building.

Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472)

San Maria Novella was the first completed design for a church facade in the

Renaissance. Alberti linked the lower aisle roof to the pedimented higher nave with

flanking scrolls.

Basilica of Sant'Andrea, (1472-94)

The Basilica of Sant'Andrea is in Mantua, Lombardy,

Italy. It is one of the major works of 15th century Renaissance architecture in Northern Italy. Commissioned by Ludovico II Gonzaga, the church was begun in 1462 according to designs by Leon Battista Alberti on a site occupied by a Benedictine monastery, of which the bell tower (1414) remains. The building, however, was finished only 328 years later.

The facade of S. Andrea, Mantua, (1472-94) is a synthesis of the triumphal arch and the temple.

Interior, S. Andrea, MantuaThe assemblage of classical elements on the interior presents the first Renaissance

vision rivalling the monumentality of the interior spaces of such ancient Roman ruins

as the basilicas or baths.

Donato Bramante

(1444 –1514)

was an Italian architect, who introduced Renaissance

architecture to Milan and the High Renaissance style to

Rome, where his plan for St. Peter's Basilica formed the

basis of the design executed by Michelangelo.

His Tempietto (San Pietro in Montorio) marked the beginning

of the High Renaissance in Rome (1502) when Alexander VI

appointed him to build a sanctuary that allegedly marked the

spot where Peter was crucified.

San Maria presso San Satiro

(1482-92),For the church of San Maria

presso San Satiro (1482-92), a

street prevented Bramante from

adding a conventional choir. He

created a low relief that when

viewed on axis, has the

convincing appearance of a barrel

vaulted choir. Using the

illusionistic potential of linear

perspective , he created what

must be the ultimate use of this

device in 15th c architecture.

The Tempietto, Rome

(begun 1502)

•Built for King Ferdinand and

Queen Isabella of Spain

•The erection of a monument atop

the spot where St Peter was

believed to have been martyred.

•Bramante designed his building to

embody both the Platonic

preference for ideal form and

Christian reverence for tradition, in

this case reverence for the circular

martyrium of the early church.

•The building is a 2-story cylinder

capped by a hemispherical dome

and surrounded by a one-story

Doric colonnade with entablature

and balustrade.

•The metope panels of the frieze

displays symbols connecting the

current authority of the Pope to the

grandeur of antiquity.

Donato Bramante (1444-1514)

Bramante’s scheme represented a building on the scale of the Baths of Diocletian capped by a

dome comparable to that of the Pantheon. Started in April 1506. By the time the church was

completed in nearly 150 years later, almost every major architect of the 16th and 17th c had

been engaged.

St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome, (1505)

Andrea Palladio

(1508 –1580)

Andrea Palladio was an architect active in the Republic of Venice.

Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily

by Vitruvius, is widely considered the most influential individual in

the history of Western architecture. All of his buildings are located in

what was the Venetian Republic, but his teachings, summarized in

the architectural treatise,

The Four Books of Architecture, gained him wide recognition.

The Four Books of Architecture

Andrea Palladio produced a body of work in architecture that arguably has been the most written about in all of Western architecture.

He went on study trips to Rome and made accurate information on classical proportions, which he later used in his designs for buildings.

The Four Books of Architecture:

•Orders of architecture

•Domestic architecture

•Public buildings

•Town planning

•Temples

Numerals on the plans give widths and lengths of rooms and heights. It was the most coherent system of proportions in the Renaissance.

Villa Rotonda, Vicenza (1566-70)

was his most famous residential design. It is square in plan with a central 2 story rotonda. The

central domed space radiates out to the 4 porticoes and to the elegantly proportioned rooms

in the corner. It is a powerful yet simple scheme, one that would be copied many times.

The design is for a completely symmetrical building having a square plan with four facades, each of which has a projecting portico. The whole is contained within an imaginary circle which touches each corner of the building and centres of the porticos.

The name La Rotonda refers to the central circular hall with its dome. To describe the villa, as a whole, as a 'rotonda' is technically incorrect, as the building is not circular but rather the intersection of a square with a cross. Each portico has steps leading up, and opens via a small cabinet or corridor to the circular domed central hall. This and all other rooms were proportioned with mathematical precision according to Palladio's own

Villa Barbaro, also known as

the Villa di Maser, is a

large villa at Maser in

the Veneto region of northern Italy. It

was designed and built by the Italian

architect Andrea Palladio.

Villa Barbaro, Maser (1557-58) was the first example of a temple front used

extensively on a domestic building.

San Giorgio Maggiore is a 16th century Benedictine church on the island of the

same name in Venice, designed by Andrea Palladio and built between 1566 and

1610. The church is a basilica in the classical renaissance style and its brilliant

white marble gleams above the blue water of the lagoon opposite the

Piazzetta and forms the focal point of the view from every part of the Riva degli

Schiavoni.

San Giorgio Maggiore, 1566-1610

Palladio offered a new solution to the Renaissance problem of placing a classical facade in front of a basilican cross

section. He combined two temple fronts: a tall one consisting of four Corinthian columns on pedestals that

support a pediment at the end of the nave, superimposed over a wide one, with smaller Corinthian pilasters, that

matches the sloping aisle roofs.

Giacomo da Vignola

(1507 –1573)

was one of the great Italian architects of 16th

century Mannerism. His two great masterpieces are

the Villa Farnese at Caprarola and the Jesuits' Church

of the Gesù in Rome.

The Villa Farnese, also known as Villa Caprarola, Northern Lazio, Italy .

This villa should not be confused with the Palazzo Farnese and the Villa

Farnesina, both in Rome.

The villa is one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture.

Ornament is used sparingly to achieve proportion and harmony. Thus while

the villa dominates the surroundings, its severe design also complements

the site. This particular style, known today as Mannerism, was a reaction

to the ornate earlier High Renaissance designs of twenty years earlier.

"Canon of the five orders of architecture“, 1562

His two published books helped formulate the canon of classical architectural style. The earliest, "Canon of the five orders of architecture" (first published in 1562, probably in Rome), presented Vignola's practical system for constructing columns in the five classical orders (Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite) utilizing proportions which Vignola derived from his own measurements of classical Roman monuments.

The clarity and ease of use of Vignola's treatise caused it to become in succeeding centuries the most published book in architectural

The Church of the Gesù, Rome, 1568The Church of the

Gesù is the mother church of the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic religious order also known as the Jesuits. Officially named Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, its facade is "the first truly baroque façade", introducing the baroque style into architecture.

The church served as model for innumerable Jesuit churches all over the world, especially in the Americas. The Church of the Gesù is located in the Piazza

Michelangelo Buonarotti

(1475 – 1564)

Michelangelo di Lodovico BuonarrotiSimoni commonly known as Michelangelo was

an Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on

the development ofWestern art. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often

considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with fellow

Italian Leonardo da Vinci.

The Palazzo Farnese

The Palazzo Farnese facade has a cornice and central window with coat of arms

at the piano nobile level. Unlike the Florentine interpretation of the type, this

palazzo has rustication only in the form of quoins and at the entry has classically

inspired window surrounds.

The Medici Chapels are two structures at the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence,

Italy, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, and built as extensions

to Brunelleschi's 15th century church, with the purpose of celebrating

the Medici family, patrons of the church and Grand Dukes of Tuscany.

The Sagrestia Nuova, ("New Sacristy"), was designed by Michelangelo.

Material: white stucco walls with gray pietra marble.

Tomb of Giuliano di Lorenzo de'

Medici with Night and Day

Tomb of Lorenzo di Piero

de'Medici with Dusk and

Dawn

The Laurentian library, Florence, 1524

Laurentian Library vestibule and

stairs by Michelangelo (c. 1524-

34). The library is located on

top of an existing monastery

building in San Lorenzo, Florence.

The staircase is a piece of

dynamic sculpture that appears to

pour forth from the upper level like

lava and compress the limited

floor space of the vestibule.

The impacted columns astride this

doorway create in architecture the

same kind of tension expressed in

the reclining figures at

Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel.

The stairway connecting the high, narrow space of the vestibule to the long, low room of the library proper is among the most remarkable inventions of mannerist architecture. It was built under the direction of BartolomeoAmmannati in 1559--more than thirty years after work on the vestibule had begun--in accordance with a clay model sent from Rome by Michelangelo.

As has often been remarked, it resembles a lava flow that the walls seem intent on containing. Here the volutes assume a character totally at odds with the static quality of the consoles from which they derive, having been invested with great power, bulging forward in the center only to recede in the lateral swirls and assume conventional form to either side of the balustrade. The large volutes easing the transition

The Laurentian library, Florence,

1524The Laurentian Library is one of

Michelangelo's most important architectural achievements.

The admirable distribution of the windows, the construction of the ceiling, and the fine entrance of the Vestibule can never be sufficiently extolled. Boldness and grace are equally conspicuous in the work as a whole, and in every part; in the cornices, corbels, the niches for statues, the commodious staircase, and its fanciful division-in all the building, as a word, which is so unlike the common fashion of treatment, that every one stands amazed at the sight thereof.

– Giorgio Vasari.

Laurentian Library

wooden reading desks.

The reading room of the

Laurentian Library.

Michelangelo's Pietà, a depiction of the

body of Jesus on the lap of his

mother Maryafter the Crucifixion, was

carved in 1499, when the sculptor was 24

years old.

The Statue of David,

completed by Michelangelo in

1504, is one of the most

renowned works of the

Renaissance.

St. Peter’s Basilica,Rome

INTRODUCTION

• The Saint Peter’s Church, also called St. Peter’s Basilica is a late Renaissance church within Vatican City. It is Europe’s largest Christian church.

• It is the second church to stand above the crypt (tomb) believed to hold the body of Saint Peter, the first pope.

• St. Peter’s is built in the shape of a cross.

• There has been a church on this site since the 4th century.

• Construction of the present basilica, over the old Constantinian basilica, began on 18 April 1506 and was completed on 18 November 1626.

• As a work of architecture, it is regarded as the greatest building of its age.

OLD ST. PETER’S BASILICA (Constantinian Basilica)

OLD ST. PETER’S BASILICA (Reconstructed Building Plans)

Nero’s Circus, Old St. Peter’s, New St. Peter’sApproximate ground plan: Note that the base of the northern grandstand of the circus becomes the foundation of the southern wall of Old St. Peter’s. Peter’s tomb was just north of the road that ran along the northern side of the Circus. It became the centre

of the crossing of the naves and transepts of both the Old and New St. Peter’s.

HISTORY

• The first St. Peter’s Church was begun by Constantine the Great about 325. He built the church to celebrate his acceptance of Christianity.

• The church was modeled on the Basilica, a rectangular building used as a meeting hall by the Romans. Four rows of columns, extending almost the length of the church, divided it into a nave with two aisles on either side.

• In 1452, Pope Nicholas V began to restore and expand the church. The restoration continued until 1506, when Pope Julius II decided to rebuild the church completely.

• During its construction, 10 different architects worked on St. Peter’s and changed its design.

• The first architect was Donato Bramante. He designed a domed, perfectly symmetrical church in the form of a Greek cross(a cross with four arms of equal length).

his

tory

of arc

hitectu

re

S. Peter, Rome

• Most important Renaissance building in Italy

• With cathedral, piazza and the Vatican, forms a world-

famous group

• 120 years, outcome of the works of many architects

under the direction of the pope

12 Architects:

1. Bramante

• His design was selected from several entries in a

competition

• He proposed a Greek cross plan and a dome similar to

the Pantheon in Rome

• Foundation stone laid in 1506

2. Giuliano da Sangallo

• Upon death of Julius II in 1513

3. Fra Giocondo

4. Raphael

• Proposed a Latin cross plan

• Died

5. Baldassare Peruzzi

• Reverted to Greek cross

• Died

6. Antonio da Sangallo

• Slightly altered plan - extended vestibule and campanile,

and elaborated the central dome

• Died

7. Michelangelo

• Undertook the project at 72 years old - present building

owes most of its outstanding features to him

• Greek-cross plan, strengthened dome, redesigned

surrounding chapels

8. Giacomo della Porta

9. Domenico Fontana

• Completed dome in 1590

10. Vignola

• Added sided cupolas

11. Carlo Maderna

• Lengthened nave to form Latin cross and built the

gigantic facade

12. Bernini

• Erected noble entrance piazza 198 m wide with Tuscan

colonnade

• Completed plan is a Latin cross with an internal length of

183 m, width of 137 m

• At crossing, majestic dome of 41.9 m internal diameter

• Largest church in the world

Renaissance

PRE-HISTORIC

NEAR EAST

EGYPTIAN

GREEK

ROMAN

EARLY CHRISTIAN

BYZANTINE

ROMANESQUE

GOTHIC

RENAISSANCE

18TH-19TH C REVIVAL

20TH C MODERN

ISLAMIC

INDIAN

CHINESE & JAPANESE

FILIPINO

ARCHITECTS OF ST. PETER BASILICA

1. Donato Bramante - Bramante proposed a Greek Cross plan, the centre of

which would be surmounted by a dome slightly larger than that of the Pantheon.

2. Giuliano Da SangalloSuperseded Bramante’s work when Pope Julius II died in 1513

– He strengthened and extended the peristyle of Bramante into a series of arched and ordered openings around the base. In his hands, the rather delicate form of the lantern, based closely on that in Florence, became a massive structure, surrounded by a projecting base, a peristyle and surmounted by a spire of conic form, but the plan was simply too eclectic to be considered.

ARCHITECTS OF ST. PETER BASILICA

3. Fra Giovanni Giocondo-Superseded the Bramante’s work together with Guiliano Da Sangallo

4. Raffaello Sanzio- The main change in Raphael's plan is the nave of five

bays, with a row of complex apsidal chapels off the aisles on either side.

- Proposed Latin cross plan

5. Baldassare Peruzzi - Maintained changes that Raphael had

proposed to the internal arrangement of the three main apses, but otherwise reverted to the Greek Cross plan and other features of Bramante.

Reverted to Greek cross plan

6. Antonio Da Sangallo The Younger - Main practical contribution was to

strengthen Bramante's piers which had begun to crack.

- Slightly altered plan, extended vistibuleand elaborated the central dome

ARCHITECTS OF ST. PETER BASILICA

7. Michelangelo Buonarotti– He reverted to Bramante’s original design,

the Greek Cross and converted its snowflake complexity into massive, cohesive unity.

Strengthened dome and redesigned surrounding chapel

8. Giacomo Barozzi da VignolaAppointed by Pope Pius V as a watchdog to

make sure that Michelangelo's plans were carried out exactly after his death.

Added the sided copulas

ARCHITECTS OF ST. PETER BASILICA

9. Giacomo Della Porta- He subsequently altered Michelangelo’s design by

adding of lion's masks over the swags on the drum in honor of Pope Sixtus and adding a circlet of finials around the spire at the top of the lantern, as proposed by Sangallo. Also proposed to raise the outer dome higher above the inner one.

- Designed the dome with Fontana.

10. Domenico FontanaHe completed the dome in 1590.

ARCHITECTS OF ST. PETER BASILICA

11. Carlo MadernoHe made the most significant contribution

since Michelangelo, because he pulled down the remaining parts of Old St. Peter's and proceeded to transform Michelangelo's centralized Greek-cross design, lengthened the nave to form into a Latin cross and built a gigantic facade.

12. Gian Lorenzo BerniniHe was regarded as the greatest architect and

sculptor of the Baroque period. Bernini's works at St. Peter's include the baldacchino, the Chapel of the Sacrament, the plan for the niches and loggias in the piers of the dome, the chair of St. Peter and erected the noble piazza (St. Peter’s Square) with 284 Ionic columns.

ARCHITECTS OF ST. PETER BASILICA

PLANNING

BRAMANTE’S PLAN

Donato Bramante won Pope Julius II

Della Rovere’s design contest for the new church. Bramante proposed a Greek

Cross plan, the centre of which

would be surmounted by a

dome slightly larger than that of the

Pantheon.

RAPHAEL’S PLAN

Raphael’s plan was for a basilica in the form of a

Roman Cross with a short

pronaos and a façade.

MICHELANGELO’SPLAN

Michelangelo changed Bramante’s plan for a

balanced and restful dome into a dynamic construction. He put a drum(ring) at the

base of the dome that appears to be squeezing the dome and forcing its sides to

spring upwards. He shortened Raphael’s nave, but Carlo Maderno added

back the nave and added the famous façade.

CARLO MADERNO’S PLAN

He made the most significant contribution

since Michelangelo, because he pulled down the

remaining parts of Old St. Peter's and proceeded to transform Michelangelo's centralized Greek-cross design into a Latin cross

with a long nave.

MADERNO’S PLAN• This extension of the basilica was undoubtedly necessary from the point of view of practical requirements, but it destroyed Michelangelo's great conception and substituted something less impressive, since the great dome can no longer be appreciated from every point of view.

• As a result of these alterations, Maderno had to design a facade which would not detract too much from the dome and, at the same time, would be worthy of its setting and also contain a central feature, the Benediction Loggia, to provide a frame for the figure of the pope when he appeared in public.

• These conflicting requirements were met as far as possible by Maderno'sadaptation of a typical Roman palace facade, with decorative motives taken from Michelangelo's works.

•The plan to provide bell towers at the ends to enframe the dome in distant views had to be abandoned because the foundations gave trouble. The work, including the decoration, was completed and consecrated on Nov. 18, 1626.

MADERNO’S PLAN

MADERNO’S FAÇADE.

•The façade designed by Maderno, is 114.69 metres (376.3 ft) wide and 45.55 metres (149.4 ft) high.

•It is built of travertine stone, with a giant order of Corinthian columns and a central pediment rising in front of a tall attic surmounted by thirteen statues: Christ flanked by eleven of the Apostles (except Peter, whose statue is left of the stairs) and John the Baptist.

THE EXTERIOR

• The church was given an impressive setting by GianLorenzo Bernini, one of its architects.

• An avenue almost 1.5 kilometers long leads from the Tiber River to the Piazza Di San Pietro (Square Of St. Peter), a large open space in front of the church.

• A red granite obelisk (shaft) stands 26 meters high in the piazza’s centre. It was brought to Rome from Egypt about A.D. 37, and was moved to the piazza in 1586.

• The Piazza which was completed in 1667, contains two fountains and two colonnades (rows of columns) arranged in semicircles on opposite sides of the Piazza.

THE INTERIORS

• The interior of the church is decorated in Baroque style.

• Bernini, who was also a sculptor, created many of its famous features in the 1650s.

• He built the elaborate bronze baldacchino (canopy) over the main alter, which stands beneath the dome. It closes the extremely long sweep of the nave and is 95 Ft. high.

• As may be seen in the accompanying plan, the four principal divisions of the basilica extend from the dome and are connected with each other by passages behind the dome piers.

• To the right and the left of the nave lie the smaller and lower aisles, the right of which is bordered by four lateral chapels, the left by three chapels and the passage to the roof.

Bernini's first work at St. Peter's was to design

the baldacchino, a pavilion-like structure

30 metres (98 ft) tall and claimed to be the

largest piece of bronze in the world, which

stands beneath the dome and above the altar. Its

design is based on the ciborium, of which there

are many in the churches of Rome, serving to

create a sort of holy space above and around the

table on which the Sacrament is laid for the

Eucharist and emphasizing the significance of

this ritual. These ciborium are generally of

white marble, with inlaid coloured stone.

Bernini's concept was for something very

different. He took his inspiration in part from

the baldachin or canopy carried above the head

of the pope in processions, and in part from

eight ancient columns that had formed part of a

screen in the old basilica. Their twisted barley-

sugar shape had a special significance as the

column to which Jesus was bound before his

crucifixion was believed to be of that shape.

Based on these columns, Bernini created four

huge columns of bronze, twisted and decorated

with olive leaves and bees, which were the

emblem of Pope Urban.

- Wikipedia

THE INTERIORS

• The general decoration consists of colored marble incrustations, stucco figures, rich gilding, mosaic decoration, and marble figures on the pilasters, ceiling, and walls.

• The paneling of the pavement in geometric figures is of colored marble after the designs of Giacomo dellaPorta and Bernini.

• Beneath it is the Confession of St. Peter, where the body of the Prince of Apostles reposes – the tomb of St. Peter’s.

• No chairs or pews obstruct the view; the eye roves freely over the glittering surface of the marble pavement, where there is room for thousands of people.

Pope John Paul XXIII

The Holy Door -

only opened on

special occasions

DIMENSIONS• Major axis of the piazza - 1115.4 feet.

• Minor axis of the piazza - 787.3 feet.

• Vestibule of the basilica - 232.9 feet wide, 44.2 deep, and 91.8 high.

• Height and width of the nave - 151.5 feet and 90.2 feet respectively.

• Entire length of the basilica including the vestibule - 693.8 feet.

• From the pavement of the church (measured from the Confession) tothe oculus of the lantern resting upon the dome the height - 404.8feet;

• To the summit of the cross surmounting the lantern - 434.7 feet.

• The measurements of the interior diameter of the dome varysomewhat, being generally computed at 137.7 feet, thus exceedingthe dome of the Pantheon by a span of 4.9 feet.

•The surface area of St. Peter's is 163,182.2 sq. feet.

SECTION THROUGH ST. PETER’S SQUARE.