110 years of construction, 12 architects and a Renaissance masterpiece
Rome, year of grace 1505. Julius II looks by sighing his good old basilica. The ramps of the city, the periods of abandonment when the popes left in Avignon and the parade of pilgrims for eleven centuries have damaged the long ancient nave …
The current pontiff is also the lord of vast states of which Rome is the capital and he must print his mark in the stone like the emperors. Rather than repairing the church for another umpteenth time, he wants new, modern and, above all, beautiful! Because Jules II is also a humanist of the Renaissance who believes that the arts are there to magnify the beauty of creation and make glory to God. Moreover, the new Saint-Pierre basilica will have to exalt the apostolic mission of the Holy Universal Church. The Pope entrusts the grand project to his favorite architect, Donato Bramante.
Raphaël, Guiliano da Sanggallo, Baldassarre Peruzzi, Michelangelo
He also recommends making a clean table past. Even Gothic has gone from fashion. On the other hand, fascinated by the style of the Roman mausoleums still debut in the city, Bramante Imagine, centered above the stone tomb, a Greek cross building surmounted by a dome reminiscent of the pantheon – this circular temple with an extraordinary dome, located in the heart of Rome. On April 14, 1506, the work began with the elevation of the pilasters necessary to support the dome. But Jules II died in 1513, breaking the following year, and the gigantic site is interrupted.
For forty years, architects follow one another according to the popes, and plans are sketched. In turn, Raphaël (1514) then Guiliano Da Sanggallo (1516) will plead for a return to the Latin cross while Baldassarre Peruzzi (1520) then finally Michelangelo (1546) want to maintain the daring idea of the Greek cross temple … The latter admired Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and will be inspired by the dome structure Switched, one interior, the other exterior. For example, he softens the angles of the four support pillars by biases and rounding.
And the student of Michelangelo becomes a prime contractor
His pupil Giacomo della Porta took over and the whole will be completed in 1590, under the pontificate of Sixtus V. The site then experienced an intense moment, 800 workers working for twenty-two months, including the night at the glow of the torches, in order to finish as quickly as possible. Giacomo della Porta and Domenico Fontana stretched the round shape of the outer dome towards the ellipse which gives it its particular look in the Roman sky.
In 1606, what remained of the Basilica of Constantine was demolished, leaving a vacant space but still sacred in front of the new monument. Paul V decides to apply the principles established during the Council of Trent (1563) and to return to a Latin cross plan, better suited to the ambulatory liturgy of the pilgrimage churches which host processions and large assemblies.
He loads Carlo Maderno to lengthen the nave and thus include the soil of the old church in the new. To do this, the architect adds three series of side chapels in Saint-Pierre which reaches the length-always unmatched for a church-187 m. Then, between 1612 and 1616, he finally produced the new column facade, at the same level as the old one, doubled with a large narthex whose central door to the nave – the splendid bronze door carved by Antonio Avréulino, known as the Filarte (around 1440) – was recovered from the old basilica. Meanwhile, the Renaissance style has evolved towards a sober but nevertheless theatrical baroque.
In 1626, after more than a century of construction and interruptions, it was finally the consecration by the urban Pope VIII. Twelve architects, during the reign of eighteen popes, will finally have contributed to the construction of the new basilica.
140 statues of saints and martyrs
Saint-Pierre then opens again on an almost rural esplanade, surrounded by buildings without ordering. In the center, sits strangely, since 1586, the Egyptian obelisk which decorated the circus of Nero and had remained drawn up on the side of the basilica. In 1656, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, known as the Bernin, was mandated by Alexandre VIII to arrange the place.
The brilliant architect imagines a double colonnade, decorated with 140 statues of saints and martyrs, which gives elegance and unit to the space that widens in trapeze in front of the doors and then tightens in ellipse. The north arm, known as Constantine, ends with an impressive royal staircase leading to the palaces. Bernini wanted to appear, emerging from the tomb of stone, the “two great maternal arms of the church” surrounding the crowd of pilgrims.
