St. Peter's Square
The St. Peter's Square ( Italian Piazza San Pietro ) was by Gian Lorenzo Bernini 1656 to 1667 under Pope Alexander VII. (1655-1667) before St. Peter's created in Rome. St. Peter's Square is part of the territory of the Vatican City . The colonnades form the state border between Vatican City and Italy .
architecture
Layout
The square consists of two parts, whereby actually only the second - viewed from St. Peter's Basilica - is considered St.
- The trapezoidal square ( Piazza Retta ) modeled on the Capitol Square by Michelangelo , which was supposed to bring the facade of Maderno closer optically and was laid out sloping to allow everyone a view of the forecourt where the religious celebrations are held. (Size approx. 12,300 m²)
- The elliptical square (St. Peter's Square proper), which is enclosed on two sides by semicircular colonnades. Bernini described his intention as follows:
“ Since the Church of Peter is, so to speak, the mother of all other churches and it must therefore have colonnades, which, as if with arms outstretched, welcome the Catholics to strengthen them in their faith, and the heretics to reunite them in the Church, as well as the Unbelievers to enlighten them to true faith. "
The greatest width is 240 meters, the depth 340 meters. The whole square is about 35,300 m².
Architectural structure and equipment
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The colonnades consist of 284 fifteen meter high columns of the Tuscan order , arranged in four rows. 140 statues of saints, each 3.2 meters in size, rise on the parapet.
The paving of the square lowers towards the middle so that the crowd can be overlooked. The Vatican Obelisk rises in the center (3.8 meters north of the longitudinal axis) . This obelisk was previously in Nero's Circus.
The northern fountain in the piazza is the work of Carlo Maderno (1613), the southern one by Carlo Fontana (1675). Between the fountain and the obelisk, two round marble tablets in the pavement mark the elliptical focal points. From there you can see the columns standing in a row. Based on the model of the two fountains and based on plans by Friedrich von Gärtner , fountains were built between 1842 and 1844 on Geschwister-Scholl-Platz in Munich , which are often referred to as Roman fountains .
History of St. Peter's Square
Antiquity
The dome of the new St. Peter's Basilica is already under construction. The Benediction Loggia Pius II and the two colossal statues of the Apostles Peter and Paul can be seen on the sides of the staircase. The well built by Pope Symmachus no longer existed at that time.
Emperor Caligula had a circus built on the southern slope of the Vatican Hill , outside the former city wall . According to tradition suffered there Petrus in 64 or 67 under Emperor Nero the martyrdom . The Via Cornelia ran along the northern edge of the circus and led out of the city from the east. According to tradition, Peter was buried at the place where the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica stands today.
The place in front of Alt-St. Peter
Under Constantine , part of the hill adjoining the burial ground to the north was demolished in order to build (326) the first St. Peter's basilica over the apostle's tomb . To the east of the basilica was an atrium, the so-called paradise , which reached as far as the eastern edge of today's staircase. The Via Cornelia now became the access road from the city. The free area in front of the basilica initially remained undesigned.
Pope Symmachus then had a fountain built on the forecourt at the end of the 5th century. For the first time at this time, the area in front of the church is referred to as a square. The exact dimensions of the square at that time are not known.
Even in the following centuries it was not possible to speak of a planning design that went beyond keeping the area free. At the end of the 5th or beginning of the 6th century, the Via Cornelia was partially replaced by a covered street of columns, the Porticus S. Petri. This probably began at Castel Sant'Angelo , where you entered it through a gate, the Porta St. Petri in Hadriano. This portico was the normal route that led to the basilica. At the end of the 7th century Hadrian I had the colonnaded street secured and restored.
15th and 16th centuries
Around 1400 Pope Boniface IX. demolish the buildings in the north, so that the square now reached up to the Leonine Wall . A first phase of urban planning began under Nicholas V. Three colonnaded streets were to lead from Castel Sant'Angelo through the Borgo district to St. Peter's Basilica. But the planning was never carried out. It was only under Pius II (1458–1464) that the actual redesign of the square began. Pius II found the place in a devastating condition. The area was unpaved, the stairs that led to the basilica were badly damaged and the front of the basilica facing the square was a hodgepodge from all past eras. Pius II, whose main concern was the fight against the Turks, wanted to prepare the place for the transfer of the head relic of St. Andrew . Thomas Palaiologos , the ruler of Morea , fled from the Turks and took the relic with him from Patras . Pius II had offered him asylum if he would bring him the apostle's head.
In 1460, the renovation work began with the new construction of the stairs by Isaia da Pisa . In March 1461 Paolo Romano received the marble for two colossal statues of the apostles Peter and Paul . In November 1461, the statue of the Apostle Paul was placed on the northern edge of the stairs. In March 1462 the statue of Peter followed on the southern edge, so that Andrew could be welcomed by the two princes of the apostles during Easter week. The construction program was supplemented by the construction of a benediction loggia on the east side of the basilica.
Pope Sixtus V had an obelisk from Nero's circus brought to St. Peter's Square in 1585 and erected here by Domenico Fontana in 1586 .
Bernini's planning and building history
In 1656 Pope Alexander VII (1655–1667) commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini to plan the square in front of the facade of St. Peter's Basilica , which was completed in 1614 . By 1667 the trapezoidal and elliptical part of the square including the flanking porticos had been built.
Actually, Bernini had planned another colonnade as a third wing (terzo braccio) as a final element of the square on the east side , but the project was canceled when Alexander VII died in 1667, so that the central colonnades were never carried out. The third colonnade would cause access to St. Peter's Square as two scenes forth so that the out of the streets of the Borgo had suddenly seen himself out Treading in front of a large and dynamic space that would have offered him a typical of the Baroque period look with surprise. The high building density of the Borgo, which closed the open space, ensured that this effect was nevertheless achieved to a limited extent.
Later changes
The construction of Via della Conciliazione under Benito Mussolini, begun in 1936 and completed in 1950, and the associated destruction of the Borgo destroyed the surprise effect planned by Bernini. In an east-west direction, this street points in its line of sight across St. Peter's Square to the portal of St. Peter's Basilica.
In August 2011, extensive renovation work began on St. Peter's Square. All 367 columns, 140 statues, the Clementina and Gregoriana fountains and the obelisk in the middle of the square were renovated. As a thank you for cleaning the figures and architectural elements, a bronze plaque naming the Baden-Württemberg cleaning equipment company was affixed to the side of the southern colonnade facing away from the square.
General audience
Every Wednesday morning the Pope holds a general audience in St. Peter's Square. In the winter months and in bad weather it takes place in the Vatican Audience Hall . There are a total of four large video walls on St. Peter's Square , on which people can follow the events during general audiences and other events.
On May 13, 1981, the Turkish right-wing extremist Mehmet Ali Ağca shot and killed Pope John Paul II during a general audience , who was critically injured. Today there is a white marble memorial stone at this point . On it is the Pope's coat of arms with the date of the assassination in Roman numerals .
security
According to the Lateran Treaty, Italy is responsible for security in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican. The surveillance is carried out by the Public Security Inspectorate , which reports directly to the Public Security Department of the Italian Police.
Illustrations
View of St. Peter's Square at night
Statue of the Apostle Prince Peter
literature
- Géza Alföldy : The Obelisk on St. Peter's Square in Rome. A historical monument of antiquity . Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 1990, ISBN 3-533-04283-9 .
sources
- Lecture by Regina M. Fischer: The rediscovery of colossal sculpture in the Renaissance
- Anna Klissouras, Bernini's St. Peter's Square
Web links
- Virtual panoramic view of St. Peter's Square at night
- 360 ° panorama picture in the center of the column
- St. Peter's Square with St. Peter's Basilica as a 3D model in SketchUp's 3D warehouse
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christof Thoenes: Studies on the history of St. Peter's Square , in: Journal for Art History, Vol. 26, P. 331–341.
- ↑ Expensive work possible through donations. ORF.at, August 27, 2011, accessed on August 28, 2011 .
Coordinates: 41 ° 54 ′ 8 ″ N , 12 ° 27 ′ 27 ″ E