The greatest minds of the High Renaissance worked on this vast church. Construction took more than a century.
Saint Peter’s Basilica (Basilica Sancti Petri), Vatican City, begun 1506, completed 1626. Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
Architects and designers included: Donato Bramante (whose design won Julius II’s competition); Antonio da Sangallo, a student of Bramante (the Pauline Chapel); Fra Giocondo (strengthening of the foundation); Raphael and Fra Giocondo (whose redesigned building plan was not executed); Michelangelo (design of the dome, crossing, and exterior excluding the nave and facade); Giacomo della Porta (design of the cupola); Carlo Maderno (extension of Michelangelo’s plan, adding a nave and grand facade); Gian Lorenzo Bernini (addition of the piazza, the Cathedra Petri, and the Baldacchino)
[0:00] [music]
Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:04] We’re standing in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City in Rome, and it is one of the largest, most ornate spaces I’ve ever been in. I shouldn’t say one of the most.
Dr. Beth Harris: [0:13] It is the most.
Dr. Zucker: [0:14] It is the most.
Dr. Harris: [0:14] That was the idea. Pope Julius II, who commissioned the rebuilding of this church in the early 16th century, said to Bramante, the first architect, [he] said, “Make me the most magnificent, biggest church in all of Christendom.” And so that’s what he did.
Dr. Zucker: [0:29] Ultimately, yes, that’s what we have, but that’s not what this place was originally. If you go back to the ancient Roman era, this was Nero’s Circus, a place where games were performed, sporting events were performed. This was a place where Nero himself apparently actually rode a chariot.
Dr. Harris: [0:44] It was also a place where there was an ancient necropolis — burial ground — and by tradition, the place where Saint Peter himself was crucified and then buried. The early Christians created a monument on that site.
Dr. Zucker: [0:59] Apparently quite small and humble.
Dr. Harris: [1:01] Then Constantine builds a church on this site, because after all, Saint Peter is the first pope, the first leader of the church, given that job by Christ himself.
Dr. Zucker: [1:11] That would have been the 4th century, so actually very early. That church, Constantine’s Saint Peter’s, lasted for a thousand years, a little more.
Dr. Harris: [1:20] Early 1500s, Pope Julius II, a very ambitious pope.
Dr. Zucker: [1:24] Julius had this extraordinary vision and he brought together some of the most talented artists to develop this extraordinary space.
Dr. Harris: [1:32] Beginning with the great High Renaissance artist Bramante, who did the initial plans for the rebuilding of Saint Peter’s, through the great artists Raphael and Michelangelo of the High Renaissance; as you said, the greatest minds of the Renaissance and then later the Baroque in the early and mid-1600s worked on this building.
Dr. Zucker: [1:52] Bramante understood this church as distinct from the way most churches had been built. That is, borrowing from the ancient Roman basilica plan.
Dr. Harris: [2:00] Most churches that anyone probably knows are basilica plan. It’s a very practical kind of plan for a church. It’s got a long central area. It allows for an easy passage of large numbers of people. It focuses on the altar.
Dr. Zucker: [2:14] It just worked well.
Dr. Harris: [2:16] It works really well.
Dr. Zucker: [2:17] That’s not what Bramante wanted.
Dr. Harris: [2:18] No, and that makes sense, if you understand the mindset of the High Renaissance, where there was an enormous interest in mathematics and in ideal perfect beauty and finding perfect proportions. Bramante’s first design for Saint Peter’s was very much based on those ideas.
[2:38] It was a Greek cross with equal arms instead of one longer arm, and it was inscribed within a square, with this dome over the center, and smaller domes.
Dr. Zucker: [2:48] In essence, it really was a series of perfect circles and perfect squares, but Bramante’s design didn’t survive.
Dr. Harris: [2:54] No. People went back and forth to it. Ultimately, what we ended up with in the end is an extension of one of the arms of the cross, and so the plan ultimately does follow a basilica format. That perfect geometric form gave way to the practical needs of the church to hold large numbers of people and to focus attention on the altar.
Dr. Zucker: [3:18] After Bramante, Raphael has a hand in the design, and ultimately it passes to Michelangelo. What Michelangelo was able to do before the later Baroque additions was to expand on, simplify, and clarify Bramante’s original ideas.
[3:34] His work can be seen in the dome and on the exterior of the three sides of the church that were not extended. Then, of course, Maderno will add his Baroque facade.
Dr. Harris: [3:46] And Bernini will decorate the interior of the church during the Baroque era as well with the Baldacchino [and] the Cathedra Petri, and will also extend the front of the church creating the piazza, the Saint Peter’s Square.
Dr. Zucker: [4:00] That’s right. Those extraordinary arms, that double colonnade.
Dr. Harris: [4:03] There’s a century and a half or so of work on this church. A series of great architects and sculptors who work on it. It all works in the end.
Dr. Zucker: [4:13] It really comes together. It is one of the most magnificent spaces on the face of the earth.
[4:17] [music]
Numerous architects, Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, begun 1506, completed 1626 (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
H.W. Brewer, Drawing of Old Saint Peter’s Basilica as it appeared between 1475 and 1483, 1891
Pope Julius II commissioned Bramante to build a new basilica—this involved demolishing the Old St Peter’s Basilica that had been erected by Constantine in the 4th century. This ancient church was in disrepair. But tearing it down was a bold maneuver that gives us a sense of the enormous ambition of Pope Julius II, both for the papacy as well as for himself.
Left to right: Bramante, plan for Saint Peter’s Basilica, 1506; Raphael, plan for Saint Peter’s Basilica, 1513; Michelangelo, plan for Saint Peter’s Basilica, 1547
Burial site of Saint Peter
The site is a very holy one—it is (according to the Catholic Church) the site of the burial of Saint Peter. Bramante did the first plan for the new church. He proposed an enormous centrally planned church in the shape of a Greek cross enclosed within a square with an enormous dome over the center, and smaller domes and half-domes radiating out. When Bramante died, Raphael took over as chief architect for Saint Peter’s, and when Raphael died, Michelangelo took over. Both Michelangelo and Raphael made substantial changes to Bramante’s original plan. Nevertheless, the experience of being inside Saint Peter’s is awe-inspiring.
Nave, numerous architects, Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, begun 1506, completed 1626 (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Basilica and central plan
The two basic types of churches are the basilica and the central plan. The basilica, with its long axis that focuses attention on the altar, has been the most popular type of church plan because of its practicality.
The other popular type of church plan is a central plan that is usually based either on the shape of a circle or on a Greek cross. These are called central plans because the measurements are all equidistant from a center. This type of church, influenced by Classical architecture (think of the Pantheon), was very popular among High Renaissance architects. Besides the influence of ancient Roman architecture, the circle had spiritual associations. The circle, which has no beginning and no end, symbolized the perfection and eternal nature of God. For some thinkers in antiquity and the Renaissance, the universe itself was constructed in the form of concentric circles with the sun, moon, and stars moving in circular orbits around the earth.
Bramante’s original design was for a central plan, however—as built—the church combines elements of a central plan with the longer nave of a basilica.
