2000 Italia: Basilica di San Pietro (Saint Peter's Basilica)

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2000 Italia: Basilica di San Pietro (Saint Peter's Basilica)

On the way from our hotel at the Campo dé Fiori we head out to San Pietro, passing by the Castel Sant' Angelo (Castle of the Holy Angel). This massive structure dominates the Tevere (Tiber) River's mid-city bend. This fortress, from 130 - 139 A.D., was once a much-larger marble-faced mausoleum built by Emperor Hadrian for himself and succeeding Caesars. Originally it featured a mammoth statue of Hadrian driving a four-horse chariot surrounded by thrice-life-size statues. In 537 the castle was besieged by the Goths. Rome won the battle by slaughtering the barbarians by bombarding them with the statues. A raised passageway runs all the way from the Vatican, across the Borgo, to the castle. This was used as an escape route by Pope Clement VIII when Spanish and German troops were sacking the Vatican and Rome in 1527. In 1823 a spiral ramp in the center of the castle, access to the lofty burial chamber of the emperors following Hadrian until Caracalla (who died in 217), was rediscovered; it had been walled off by fortifiers of the castle in about 1390.

The name dates back to 590, when Pope Gregory the Great, leading a procession to pray for the city’s release from plague, crossed the bridge leading to the castle gate and looked up to see an angel sheathing a sword. Feeling this was a sign of the plague's impending end he built a chapel and an angel statue, which was set upon the castle's uppermost turret.

Now a museum and a gallery of military arms (we were told) we passed it up to get into San Pietro early in the day. We stroll down the Via Della Conciliazione, past dozens of vendors selling water, snacks, religious articles, and film. A few blocks of this and then we're in a wide piazza, facing St. Peter's Basilica.

It's a much larger space than I'm expecting, even though I've heard that it can hold the fifty thousand people whe attend the Christmas mass. We feel embraced by the double colonnade, 284 towering columns arranged four deep, which surround us. In the middle is an Egyptian obelisk (the only survivor of fifty which had been brought to Rome from Egypt, the only one not consumed by the passing of time). (Michelangelo deemed the raising of an obelisk impossible; nevertheless it was done in 1586 at the wish of Sixtus V.) I was told the obelisk had stood to one side of the "square", where the ancient Circus of Caligula had been. It's believed that the martyrdom of the apostle Peter had taken place in its vicinity.

St. Peter, a disciple of Jesus and first among the Apostles, spent his latter years in Rome, until crucifixion in 67 A.D on the Neronian Gardens on the Vatican.

As we approach the church we're struck by the size of the cupola. Devin points out the balcony from which the Pope gives his address. Isaac naps.

We head toward the church.

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