Enter St. Peter's Basilica in Rome from the center door and view the huge interior

St. Peter's Basilica

Chapter 17-- Rome

The Basilica di San Pietro – St. Peter's Church

     Doors open at 7:30 am. I would be there at the appointed hour to enter St. Peter's Church, the most famous holy church and historic building in the world.

     The previous day, we toured the Vatican Museums, buildings stuffed with the treasures of the world, and also really stuffed with tourists.

     The Vatican Museum tour ends with the Sistine Chapel, then moves into The Basilica di San Pietro – St. Peter's Basilica. Once in the basilica, even as huge as it is, that afternoon it remained heavily stuffed too .

     The basilica opens each day at 7:30, and I vowed to be there next morning, before the crowds, to absorb the building alone.

     So here I am, early in the morning, myself and a few pilgrims coming in for early mass.

     At right as you enter, there's the Pieta, Michelangelo's masterpiece, the Virgin Mary holding the dead Jesus, after the crucifixion. It's behind protective glass now, ever since in 1972, a person tried to damage it with an ax.

     Here's a quote by Charles Dickens who visited the church in 1846, describing his first steps into the building: The first burst of the interior, in all its expansive majesty and glory and most of all the looking up into the dome, is a sensation never to be forgotten.

     Early morning inside is dark, the sun low against illuminating the interior. Along the sides are small chapels, and I see a service in progress near the front. Noticing many nuns, and since the public is allowed in at 7:30, this must be an early mass being said for workers in the Vatican. As the morning progresses, more and more people enter, many of them locals arriving for mass before work. A priest enters another chapel and begins a service, as many visitors follow. By the time I leave at about 10 am., the chapels are busy, including an organist.

     Many are tourists like myself who simply had to be there, to witness this magnificent holy building, and allow it absorb you. It does not matter your faith, one way or another, this atmosphere, this building interior, will move you.

     The first chapel concludes, worshipers break into groups and go their ways. I watch one of the caretakers, a sampietrini,  manipulate gallon jugs, filling huge baptismal fonts with holy water, ready for the day's visitors.

     As I wander through the basilica, photographing what I can because of the dim light, there are statues everywhere including the 13^th Century bronze statue of St. Peter. After all, this is St. Peter's church, his holy shrine, plus the finest renaissance monuments and decorations money could buy.

     There are more monuments, 39 of saints who founded religious orders and St. Teresa of Avila and other renaissance decorations, plus 44 altars, 27 chapels, 800 columns, 400 statues and 300 windows.

     It is huge inside covering 5.7 acres able to accommodate crowds up to 60,000.

     St. Peter's was founded in 324 by Constantine, then rebuilt in the 16^th Century by Renaissance masters including Bramante, Michelangelo and Bernini with the center focus as the shrine to St. Peter, the first pope, crucified and buried on this very spot, his tomb under the central altar.

     As you wander the church, there is always something that strikes your eye – high above the altar designed by Bernini, a bright golden window of glass with the outline of a dove, shines over all. It's the symbol of the holy ghost. .

     As you enter and walk towards the dome, there is Bernini's Baldacchino at the crossing of the transepts, shelter of the papal alter. If you have seen televised events from the basilica, you have seen this on television, four giant twisting columns of bronze, rising 90 feet from the floor. At the apex of the Baldacchino a globe is supported by four ribs and crowned by a cross.  It is the most sacred location of the Roman Catholic Church, a vertical axis runing from the exact center of Michelangelo's dome then going straight down into the Tomb of St. Peter.

     As you look up into Michelangelo's dome, there are the famous inscriptions surrounding the base: (in Latin of course) You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

     And: (in Latin) To the glory of St. Peter, Sixtus V, pope, in the year 1590 and the fifth year of his pontificate.

     Now you can take the elevator or climb the stairs to the dome, view the interior of the church from the gallery above, feel its enormity. Then go out onto the east side of the roof, view Vatican City, St. Peters Square and the Eternal City beyond.

     Three blocks away was our apartment. I returned, gathered the family, and on a quiet Roman side street in the residential area, we enjoyed morning cappuccino and a pastry, as all Italians do.

A Book Review

     If you like murder mysteries particularly spy novels, a new book by author Danial Silva is now available, entitled The Fallen Angel. Silva is a spy novelist, with his central character and super spy Gabrial Allon, a master art restorer who is regularly contracted  by the Vatican.

     Gabrial Allon also is an undercover Isreali assassin, on call from Israeli secret security forces for special deadly assignments usually involving international terrorism.
      He is in the Vatican in this current novel restoring a Carravegio, The Deposition of Christ,  when he is summond by the pope's senior aide to come to the Baldacchino area in St. Peter's Basilica where there lies under a tarpaulin the shattered female body of one of the art historians of the Vatican.  She supposedly fell from the catwalks of  Michelangelo's dome, straight down towards the tomb of St. Peter.
    It was first ruled to be a suicide, but Gabrial Allon knows she was murdered.

    In another of Silva's books, Gabrial Allon saves the pope from a terrorist bomb, which does great damage to St. Peters square during the Wednesday audiance killing hundreds of pilgrims.

     Silva's spy novels are fast paced, a roller coaster ride through Europe and the Middle East.   

        Carravaggio's Deposition of Christ, regarded as his finest painting, is described in the spy novel, A Fallen Angel by Daniel Silva who writes:  "the art restorer glowed under the intense white light.  Gabriel stood motionless before the towering canvas for several minutes, hand pressed to his chin, head tilted to one side, eyes fixed on the haunting image.
 " Nicodemus, muscular and barefoot, stared directly back as he carefully lowered the pale, lifeless body of Christ toward the slab of funerary stone where it would be prepared for entombment.  Next to Nicodemus was John the Evangelist, who, in his desperation to touch his beloved teacher one last time, had inadvertently opened the  wound in the Savior's side.
  Watching silently over them were the Madonna and the Magdalene, their heads bowed, while Mary of Cleophas raised her arms toward the heavens in lamentation.  It was a work of both immense sorrow and tenderness, made more striking by Caravaggio's revolutionary use of light.
  Even Gabriel, who had been toiling over the painting for weeks, always felt as though he were intruding on a heartbreaking moment of private anguish."

One of the two fountains in St. Peter's Square, Rome

Here comes Pope Benedict XVI, standing in open air rolling through the crowds in Wednesday morning audience in St. Peter's Square.

Chapter 16 – Rome

The Pope in St. Peters Square

     We arranged our itinerary so as to have our first day in Rome on a Wednesday.

Each Wednesday at 10 am in St. Peter's Square, the Pope holds an audience with the people assembled in the square.

     It's June, and it's hot, even at mid morning.

     There are thousands of people here, the faithful coming to see the Holy Father and participate. As members of the Good Shepard Catholic Church in Tallahassee, our daughter and granddaughter left our apartment early to get a good seat in the reserved area.

     Then on schedule, a man in a bright red hat and white flowing robes appeared, standing in a cart, a cart being pushed through the crowds on assigned paths, surrounded by security guards.

     It was Pope Benedict XVI in person..

     It was electric, and if you can see by the photos accompanying this chapter, everyone had a camera, and as the Pope passed, all cameras were held in the air to get a picture.

     You probably have seen St. Peter's Square on TV during significant religious moments, such as Easter, when the entire St. Peter's Square is jammed with people, This event wasn't that crowded, but the faithful still number a few thousand.

As the pope left his cart and mounted the steps of the church, he sat under a canopy, and a priest changed his red hat for a white one, then he delivered a greeting in several languages to the assembled.

     When the Pope was in his cart, I was at the rail as he passed, and snapped some great closeups. Although not Catholic myself, but having grown up in Catholic families, the event still was meaningful. So here you are, in front of one of the greatest cathedrals in the world, standing in the square of one of the greatest historical locations in the world, and one of the greatest men of peace passes in front or you.

     How impressive is that?

     Let's talk about the popes. I'll take these next few paragraphs from the book, Insight Guides to Italy, facts and figures on the popes.

     “There have been 263 popes. The shortest reign of a pope was that of Stephen II, who died four days after his election in March 752. At the other extreme, the 19^th century's Pius IX, famous for his practical jokes and his love of billiards, headed the Holy See for 32 years. The youngest pope on record, John XI, was just 16 when he took the helm in 931; the oldest, Gregory IX, managed to survive 14 years after his election in 1227 at the age of 86.

     While the great majority have been of either Roman or Italian extraction, Spain, Greece, Syria, France and Germany have all been represented, and there has been at least one of African Birth (Miltiades, 311-14), and one hailing from England (Hadrian IV, 1154-9). John Paul II was the first Pole to lead the Catholic Church. At least 14 popes abdicated or were deposed from office. Ten popes met violent deaths, including a record three in a row in the 10^th century.”

     As we sat there in St. Peters Square, I had my 26 power lens on the camera, and panned around the statuary atop the colonnades later to learn that the figures are of former saints, members who set examples for the love of God. Also, on the church itself, on the top of each side of the facade, there are clocks, perfectly in sync with one another.

     I also learned that in ancient times, this area was part of the Roman circus, where chariot races were held, and executions, including St. Peter on the site where his church would stand in subsequent future centuries. The obelisk is from Egypt brought to Rome in 37 AD by Emperor Caligula. It's a sundial too, a solar symbol communicating with the devine.

     On this day, the only chariot was the pope's cart, winding its way through the crowds—twice.

     Some details on the colonnades. Actually, it's an elliptical space, with 284 Doric columns, four deep. The space was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and constructed between 1657-1667 during the pontificates of Alexander VII and Clement IX.

     Piazza San Pietro (St. Peters Square) is part of Vatican City, 100 acres of the world's smallest independent sovereign entity, as small as new York City's Central Park.

A pause in the action

We are going to pause here in our journey for a review

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1. This blog is getting long, and if you read the current chapter at the top of the blog, Part 2 of the War in Tuscany, I am sure you have discovered that you can stroll down several chapters past this one and discover some you may have missed The blog starts with our visit to Cretaiole, a week stay in a farm house in Tuscany, and our drive touring the farm roads and hillside villages.

2. If you missed the first chapter, look left, and see the “archive list” then click on July 17, for chapter one. Also at left, and you will have to scroll down a little to find them, there are several slide shows. You see them changing pictures. Click on the picture shown, let the slide photo come up, then click on “full screen,” and let the show begin. You an adjust the time between the frames at the bottom of the photos.
3. The chapters are added each Tuesday and Friday, so check your schedule to catch the latest editions.
4.  Tuesday and the approach of the storm, and due to the high probability there will be no power, this will be the entry, posting it Monday night.. Also, I will ad some photos of Florence.
5. The precaution against power is real, Monday morning, we awoke with no power, even though there had not yet been the slightest threat of storm. Tallahassee utilities in our part of town constantly fights falling trees and power outagesI hope you are enjoying these reports, and if you are planning a trip to Italy, I hope these missives give you some desire to do so.
6. Some of these chapters have a comment box on the bottom, so please let me hear from you, and comment. We are not through yet.
7.  After Florence, it's on to Rome for four days, then Venice for four days plus a visit in Venice to the world's most unusual bookstore where you can either walk in from the street through the front door, or disembark from your boat from the canal through the back door...or is it the other way around?

Some views of Florence

Tired toursts take a break outside the Uffizi musem in Florence

Statuary on the Duomo in Florence

Side view of the Duomo in Florence

Lean lights a candle in basilica in Florence