Designed principally by Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, St. Peter's is the most renowned work of Renaissance architecture and remains one of the largest churches in the world. While it is neither the mother church of the Roman Catholic Church nor the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, St. Peter's is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic sites. It has been described as "holding a unique position in the Christian world" and as "the greatest of all churches of Christendom".
As a work of architecture, it is regarded as the greatest building of its age. St. Peter's is one of the four churches of Rome that hold the rank of Major Basilica - and pretty major at that!
The dimensions of this place are mind-bogglingly huge: length of 220 metres (730 feet); width of 150 metres (500 feet); and a maximum height of 138 metres (452 feet). The floor has markings showing the length of some of the other basilicas from around the world, and they are mostly dwarfed by St Peter's. In area, the basilica covers 2.3 hectares (5.7 acres).
As you can probably imagine, the statues here are huge, just to be in keeping with the scale of the building; people, then, are dwarfed by it all.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
The line to get in, which must have numbered about 3,000 on Wednesday (which was why I went away), was down to a much more manageable 30 when I arrived (I counted) - sometimes it pays to be an early riser (the line was considerably longer when I left); and with the weather looking patchy at best (in fact downright rainy at times), it was good to get straight in. And there was no line for the cupola (dome). A decision to be made - pay 5 euros to climb the full 550 steps to he top of the dome, or pay 7 euros and get through the first 220 steps by elevator - now I know that I've been doing the hard yards, but today, decided to take the easy way, which still left 330 steps to be negotiated, both up and down!
The elevator deposits you onto the roof of the basilica, from where you enter the dome - which makes for a pretty spectacular first sight of the interior of the church - from the rim of the dome, with views into the dome itself, and down onto the Papal altar.
Lavishly decorated internally (like everything else here), the dome has an external diameter of 42 metres (137.7 feet), and an internal diameter of 41.5 metres (136.1 feet).
The dome rises to a total height of 136.57 metres (448.1 ft) from the floor of the basilica to the top of the external cross, making it the tallest dome in the world. Its internal diameter is slightly smaller than two of the three other huge domes that preceded it, those of the Pantheon of Ancient Rome, 43.3 metres (142 ft), and Florence Cathedral of the Early Renaissance, 44 metres (144 ft); it has a greater diameter by approximately 30 feet (9.1 m) than Constantinople's Hagia Sophia church, completed in 537. It was to the domes of the Pantheon and Florence duomo that the architects of St. Peter's looked for solutions as to how to go about building what was conceived, from the outset, as the greatest dome of Christendom. Apparently Michelangelo specifically designed the dome to be smaller than that of the Pantheon - he knew that he could build bigger, but chose not to in deference to the Pantheon's beauty (although smaller in diameter, it does stand taller).
Exiting the dome, you are presented with glorious views (well, they would be glorious of the weather was better, but they are still pretty damn fine) over St Peter's Square and the city of Rome. Overall, well worth the effort to come to the top of St Peter's.
The entire interior of St. Peter's is lavishly decorated with marble (relocated from the Roman Forum and Palatine, where they had a ready supply available), reliefs, architectural sculpture and gilding. The basilica contains a large number of tombs of popes and other notable people, many of which are considered outstanding artworks. There are also a number of sculptures in niches and chapels, including Pietà by Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni [6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564]), sculpted when he was only 25, and considered (understandably) a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture, depicting the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother Mary after the Crucifixion.
With the weather really closing in at times, it was a simple decision to return to the accommodation for a reasonably restful last afternoon in Rome - tomorrow, the train to Florence.