Rome Guide
Rome
Basilica di San Pietro
Opening time: Daily: April– Sept 7am–7pm; Oct– March 7am–6pm. Treasury daily: summer 9am–6.15pm; winter 9am–5.15pm. Grottoes daily: summer 9am–6pm; winter 9am–5pm. Roof and dome daily: April– Sept 8am–5pm; Oct– March 8am–4pm
Price: Treasury €6; Roof and dome €7 with lift, €5 using the stairs
The Basilica di San Pietro, better known as St Peter's, is the principal shrine of the Catholic Church, built on the site of St Peter's tomb, and worked on by the greatest Italian architects of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One of the channels on the right side of the piazza funnels you into the basilica (the other two lead to the underground grottoes or the ascent to the dome). You need to be properly dressed to enter, which means no bare knees or shoulders – a rule that is very strictly enforced.
Going straight into the church, the first thing you see is Michelangelo's graceful pietà on the right, completed when he was just 24. Following a vandalism attack, it sits behind glass, strangely remote from the life of the rest of the building. Further into the church, the dome rises high above the supposed site of St Peter's tomb. With a diameter of 41.5 metres it is Rome's largest dome, supported by four enormous piers, decorated with reliefs depicting the basilica's so-called "major relics": St Veronica's handkerchief, which was used to wipe the face of Christ; the lance of St Longinus, which pierced Christ's side; and a piece of the True Cross. On the right side of the nave, the bronze statue of St Peter is another of the most venerated monuments in the basilica, its right foot polished smooth by the attentions of pilgrims. Bronze was also the material used in Bernini's wild spiralling baldacchino, a massive 26m high. Bernini's feverish sculpting decorates the apse, too, his bronze Cattedra enclosing the supposed chair of St Peter, though more interesting is his monument to Alexander VII in the south transept, with its winged skeleton struggling underneath the heavy marble drapes, upon which the Chigi pope is kneeling in prayer.
The treasury has among many riches, including the late-fifteenth-century bronze tomb of Pope Sixtus IV by Pollaiuolo. A good number of popes are buried in the grottoes, including John Paul II. The ascent to the roof and dome is well worth making. The views from the gallery around the interior of the dome give you a sense of the enormity of the church, and from there you can make the (challenging) ascent to the lantern at the top of the dome, from which the views over the city are as glorious as you'd expect.