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St. Peter's Square, or St. Peter's Piazza (Piazza San Pietro), is located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica, in Vatican City, a papal enclave within Rome. The open space before the basilica was redesigned by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, from 1656 to 1667, under the direction of Pope Alexander VII, as an appropriate forecourt, designed "so that the greatest number of people could see the Pope give his blessing, either from the middle of the façade of the church or from a window in the Vatican Palace" (Norwich 1975 p 175). Bernini had been working on the interior of St Peter's for decades; now he used the Tuscan form of Doric, the simplest order in the classical vocabulary, not to compete with the palace-like facade by Carlo Maderno, but on a colossal scale to suit the space and give more emotion, A self portrait: Bernini is said to have used his own features in the David (below, left) Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini) (December 7, 1598 - November 28, 1680), who worked chiefly in Rome, was the pre-eminent baroque artist. ...
The Lateran Treaties of February 11, 1929 provided for the mutual recognition of the then Kingdom of Italy and the Vatican City. ...
Benito Mussolini created a fascist state through the use of propaganda, total control of the media and disassembly of the working democratic government. ...
Interior view, with the nave of the Cattedra in the back St. ...
The State of the Vatican City ( Latin: Status Civitatis Vaticanæ), is a landlocked enclave surrounded by the city of Rome in Italy, and the smallest independent state in the world (both in area and in population). ...
The Roman Colosseum Rome (Italian and Latin Roma) is the capital city of Italy, and of its Lazio region. ...
A self portrait: Bernini is said to have used his own features in the David (below, left) Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini) (December 7, 1598 - November 28, 1680), who worked chiefly in Rome, was the pre-eminent baroque artist. ...
Events Masuria is devastated during the Deluge when it was raided by Tartars and Poles End of the war started in 1648 between Poland, Ducal Prussia, Russia and Transylvania. ...
Events January 20 - Poland cedes Kyiv, Smolensk, and eastern Ukraine to Russia in the Treaty of Andrusovo that put a final end to the Deluge, and Poland lost its status as a Central European power. ...
Alexander VII, né Fabio Chigi (February 13, 1599 - May 22, 1667) was pope from April 7, 1655 until his death in 1667. ...
The uncompleted Doric temple at Segesta, Sicily, has been waiting for finishing of its surfaces since 430 - 420 BC The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of Ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. ...
The site's possibilities were under many constraints from existing structures. The obelisk marked a center, and a fountain by Carlo Maderno stood to one side: Bernini made the fountain appear to be one of the foci of his oval and eventually matched it on the other side, in 1675, just five years before his death. The trapezoidal shape of the piazza, which creates a heightened perspective for a visitor leaving the basilica and has been praised as a masterstroke of Baroque theater (illustration, above right), is largely a product of site constraints. Events January 5 - The Battle of Turckeim August 10 - Building of the Royal Greenwich Observatory began November 11 - Guru Gobind Singh becomes the Tenth Guru of the Sikhs. ...
The oval's long axis, facing the basilica's facade, creates a pause in the forward movement characteristic of a Baroque monumental approach. The classical style of the piazza is expressed in the colossal Doric colonnades, four columns deep, which frame the trapezoidal entrance to the basilica and the massive oval area which precedes it. The colonnades define the piazza. The oval center of the piazza, which contrasts with the trapezoidal entrance, encloses the visitor with "the maternal arms of Mother Church" in Bernini's expression. On the south side, the colonnades define and formalize the space, with the Barberini Gardens still rising to a skyline of umbrella pines. On the north side, the colonnade masks an assortment of Vatican structures; the upper stories of the Vatican Palace rise above. Adoration, by Peter Paul Rubens: dynamic figures spiral down around a void: draperies blow: a whirl of movement lit in a shaft of light, rendered in a free bravura handling of paint The Baroque was a style in art that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce...
A piazza is an open square in a city, often used as a marketplace, found in Italy. ...
The uncompleted Doric temple at Segesta, Sicily, has been waiting for finishing of its surfaces since 430 - 420 BC The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of Ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. ...
In classical architecture, a colonnade denotes a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, as in the famous elliptically curving colonnades that Bernini added to the facade of Saint Peters Basilica in Rome, which embrace and define the Piazza. ...
At the center of the oval stands an Egyptian obelisk, forty meters tall to the cross on its top. The obelisk, of the 13th century B.C., was moved to Rome in the 1st century to stand in the central spina of the Circus of Nero, which lay to the left of the present basilica. It was moved to its current resting place in 1586 by the engineer-architect Domenico Fontana under the direction of Pope Sixtus V; the engineering feat of re-erecting its vast weight was memorialized in a suite of engravings. Bernini had no influence in the erection of the obelisk, he did use it as the centerpiece of his magnificent piazza. For the obelisk punctuation mark, see dagger (typography). ...
The Circus of Nero in ancient Rome is often confused with the older and larger Circus Maximus. ...
Events November 19 - Henry Barrow, English Puritan and Separatist is imprisoned. ...
Domenico Fontana ( 1543 – 1607) was a Roman architect of the late Renaissance. ...
Sixtus V, né Felice Peretti (December 13, 1521 - August 27, 1590) was pope from 1585 to 1590. ...
The paving is varied by radiating lines in travertine, to relieve what might otherwise be a sea of cobblestones. In 1817 circular stones were set to mark the tip of the obelisk at noon as the sun entered each of the signs of the zodiac, making of the obelisk a gnomon. This article is about the astrological concept. ...
The gnomon is the part of a sundial which casts the shadow. ...
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