Basilica
Subtitle: the splendor and the scandal : building St. Peter's
By: R.A. Scotti.
Publisher: Viking Penguin/Penguin Group
Published: 2006
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 299
Subjects: Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano -- History; Vatican City -- History; Vatican City -- Buildings, structures, etc
Description: It was the splendor--and the scandal--of the age, the defining event of the high Renaissance. In 1506, the ferociously ambitious Renaissance Pope Julius II tore down the most sacred shrine in Europe--the millennium-old St. Peter's Basilica built by the Emperor Constantine over the apostle's grave--to build a better basilica. Construction of the new St. Peter's spanned two centuries, embroiled 27 popes, and consumed the genius of the greatest artists of the age--Michelangelo, Bramante, Raphael, and Bernini. As the basilica rose, modern Rome rose with it, as glorious as the city of the Caesars. But the cost was unimaginable: the new basilica provoked the Protestant Reformation, dividing the Christian world for all time.--From publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [281]-284) and index.