No one can look upon the Piazza of St. Peter's without associating it with the great religious ceremonies with which it is connected, especially that of the Easter Benediction.
"Out over the great balcony stretches a white awning, where priests and attendants are collected, and where the pope will soon be seen. Below, the piazza is alive with moving masses. In the centre are drawn up long lines of soldiery, with yellow and red pompons, and glittering helmets and bayonets. These are surrounded by crowds on foot, and at the outer rim are packed carriages filled and overrun with people, mounted on the seats and boxes. What a sight it is!—above us the great dome of St. Peter's, and below, the grand embracing colonnade, and the vast space, in the centre of which rises the solemn obelisk thronged with masses of living beings. Peasants from the Campagna and the mountains are moving about everywhere. Pilgrims in oil-cloth cape and with iron staff demand charity. On the steps are rows of purple, blue, and brown umbrellas, for there the sun blazes fiercely. Everywhere crop forth the white hoods of Sisters of Charity, collected in groups, and showing, among the parti-coloured dresses, like beds of chrysanthemums in a garden. One side of the massive colonnade casts a grateful shadow over the crowd beneath, that fill up the intervals of its columns; but elsewhere the sun burns down and flashes everywhere. Mounted on the colonnade are crowds of people leaning over, beside the colossal statues. Through all the heat is heard the constant plash of the sun-lit fountains, that wave to and fro their veils of white spray. At last the clock strikes. In the far balcony are seen the two great showy peacock fans, and between them a figure clad in white, that rises from a golden chair, and spreads his great sleeves like wings as he raises his arms in benediction. That is the pope, Pius the Ninth. All is dead silence, and a musical voice, sweet and penetrating, is heard chanting from the balcony;—the people bend and kneel; with a cold gray flash, all the bayonets gleam as the soldiers drop to their knees, and rise to salute as the voice dies away, and the two white wings are again waved;—then thunder the cannon,—the bells clash and peal,—a few white papers, like huge snow-flakes, drop wavering from the balcony;—these are Indulgences, and there is an eager struggle for them below;—then the pope again rises, again gives his benediction,[326] waving to and fro his right hand, three fingers open, and making the sign of the cross,—and the peacock fans retire, and he between them is borne away,—and Lent is over."—Story's Roba di Roma.
The first church which existed on or near the site of the present building, was the oratory founded in A.D. 90, by Anacletus, bishop of Rome, who is said to have been ordained by St. Peter himself, and who thus marked the spot where many Christian martyrs had suffered in the circus of Nero, and where St. Peter was buried after his crucifixion.
In 306 Constantine the Great yielded to the request of Pope Sylvester, and began the erection of a basilica on this spot, labouring with his own hands at the work, and himself carrying away twelve loads of earth, in honour of the twelve apostles.[327] Anastasius describes how the body of the great apostle was exhumed at this time, and re-interred in a shrine of silver, enclosed in a sarcophagus of gilt bronze. The early basilica measured 395 feet in length by 212 in width. Its nave and aisles were divided by eighty-six marble pillars of different sizes, in great part brought from the Septizonium of Severus, and it had an atrium, and a paradisus, or quadrangular portico, along its front.[328] Though only half the size of the present cathedral, still it covered a greater space than any mediæval cathedral except those of Milan and Seville, with which it ranked in size.[329]
The old basilica suffered severely in the Saracenic invasion of 846, when some authorities maintain that even the tomb of the great apostle was rifled of its contents, but it was restored by Leo IV., who raised the fortifications of the Borgo for its defence.
Among the most remarkable of its early pilgrims were, Theodosius, who came to pray for a victory over Eugenius; Valentinian, emperor of the East, with his wife Eudoxia, and his mother Galla-Placidia; Belisarius, the great general under Justinian; Totila; Cedwalla, king of the West Saxons, who came for baptism; Concred, king of the Mercians, who came to remain as a monk, having cut off and consecrated his long hair at the tomb of St. Peter; Luitprand, king of the Lombards; Ina of Wessex, who founded a church here in honour of the Virgin, that Anglo-Saxons might have a place of prayer, and those who died, a grave; Carloman of France, who came for absolution and remained as a monk, first at S. Oreste (Soracte), then at Monte Casino; Richard of England; Bertrade, wife of Pepin, and mother of Charlemagne; Offa, the Saxon, who made his kingdom tributary to St. Peter; Charlemagne (four times), who was crowned here by Leo III.; Lothaire, crowned by Paschal I.; and, in the last year of the reign of Leo IV., Ethelwolf, king of the Anglo-Saxons, who was crowned here, remained a year, and who brought with him his boy of six years old, afterwards the great Alfred.
Of the old basilica, the crypt is now the only remnant, and there are collected the few relics preserved of the endless works of art with which it was filled, and which for the most part were lost or wilfully destroyed, when it was pulled down. Its destruction was first planned by Nicholas V. (1450), but was not carried out till the time of Julius II., who in 1506 began the new St. Peter's from designs of Bramante. The four great piers and their arches above were completed, before the deaths of both Bramante and Pope Julius interrupted the work. The next pope, Leo X., obtained a design for a church in the form of a Latin cross from Raphael, which was changed, after his death (on account of expense) to a Greek cross, by Baldassare Peruzzi, who only lived to complete the tribune. Paul III. (1534) employed Antonio di Sangallo as an architect, who returned to the design of a Latin cross, but died before he could carry out any of his intentions. Giulio Romano succeeded him and died also. Then the pope, "being inspired by God," says Vasari, sent for Michael Angelo, then in his seventy-second year, who continued the work under Julius III., returning to the plan of a Greek cross, enlarging the tribune and transepts, and beginning the dome on a new plan, which he said would "raise the Pantheon in the air." The dome designed by Michael Angelo, however, was very different to that which we now admire, being much lower, flatter, and heavier. The present dome is due to Giacomo della Porta, who brought the great work to a conclusion in 1590, under Sixtus V., who devoted 100,000 gold crowns annually to the building. In 1605 Paul V. destroyed all that remained of the old basilica, and employed Carlo Maderno as his architect, who once more returned to the plan of the Latin cross, and completed the present ugly façade in 1614. The church was dedicated by Urban VIII., November 18th, 1626; the colonnade added by Alexander VII., 1667, the sacristy by Pius VI., in 1780. The building of the present St. Peter's extended altogether over 176 years, and its expenses were so great that Julius II. and Leo X. were obliged to meet them by the sale of indulgences, which led to the Reformation. The expense of the main building alone has been estimated at 10,000,000l. The annual expense of repairs is 6300l.
"St. Pierre est une sorte de ville à part dans Rome, ayant son climat, sa température propre, sa lumière trop vive pour être religieuse, tantôt deserte, tantôt traversée par des sociétés de voyageurs, ou remplie d'une foule attirée par les cérémonies religieuses (à l'époque des jubilés le nombre des pélerins s'est parfois élevé à Rome, jusqu'à 400,000). Elle a ses reservoirs d'eau; sa fontaine coulant perpetuellement au pied de la grande coupole, dans un bassin de plomb, pour la commodité des travaux; ses rampes, par lesquelles les bêtes de somme peuvent monter; sa population fixe, habitant ses terrasses. Les San Pietriné, ouvriers chargés de tous les travaux qu'exige la conservation d'un aussi précieux edifice, s'y succèdent de père en fils, et forment une corporation qui a ses lois et sa police."—A. Du Pays.
The façade of St. Peter's is 357 feet long and 144 feet high. It is surmounted by a balustrade six feet in height, bearing statues of the Saviour and the Twelve Apostles. Over the central entrance is the loggia where the pope is crowned, and whence he gives the Easter benediction. The huge inscription runs—"In. Honorem. Principis. Apost. Paulus V. Burghesius. Romanus. Pont. Max. A. MDCXII. Pont. VII."
"I don't like to say the façade of the church is ugly and obtrusive. As long as the dome overawes, that façade is supportable. You advance towards it—through, O such a noble court! with fountains flashing up to meet the sunbeams; and right and left of you two sweeping half-crescents of great columns; but you pass by the courtiers and up to the steps of the throne, and the dome seems to disappear behind it. It is as if the throne was upset, and the king had toppled over."—Thackeray, The Newcomes.