185, Rome St Peter's Basilica, Catholic HQ

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St Peter’s basilica is probs top building in the Catholic Church, and Headquarters of the Holy, see? Sure, the more finicky will point out that there is only one cathedral in Rome and this ain’t it. But St Peter’s gets papal audiences every week, popes’ funerals when necessary, and is actually built on St Peter’s tomb, so it trumps cathedral St John Lateran, I think.


The size of the basilica is breathtaking. My own favourite bit is the amazing 90 foot tall bronze canopy by Bernini, the bronze looks so delicate. Bernini also did a couple of grand monuments to popes in this basilica, as well as the statue of St Longinus. Now, Longinus is the soldier, in the New Testament, who stuck a spear into Jesus’s side to ensure hé was dead (“At the time I just felt I was doing my job,” he said to the local newspaper). Later, he converted to Christianity, they say, and ended up a saint.


A lot of the inside is very gilded volumes and “look who’s king of the castle now”. In huge letters it says in Latin around the dome “You are Peter and on this rock I shall build my church”, a viral soundbite if ever there was one.  Swathes of marble, more giant martyrs, and the famous pietà by Michelangelo ( he made Jesus smallish for balance).


Lots of Latin slogans and if you did Latin at school, like me, you might understand one word in four.


St Peter’s chair occupies the high altar. Extremely stylish confessionals are dotted around the aisles. And there are great pictures, in particularly a transfiguration scene, a reproduction of a Raphael. What appear to be paintings in this building are in fact, incredibly, mosaics.


A stairway going down allows you to look at tombs of many popes, and also of the Stuart Royal Family (the ones who got upset when England went Protestant). Al the recent popes seem to be buried in the basilica: John Paul one and two, Paul VI, Benedict …


The basilica also contains four of the most precious Church relics, including the spear which pierced Jesus (see above), Veronica’s veil, and a chunk of the True Cross.




























































































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