As the centre of the Catholic world, St. Peter’s Square is a breath-taking spiritual experience for all who visit it.
St. Peter’s Square was designed, under the direction of Pope Alexander VII, by the celebrated Baroque architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini from 1656 to 1667, with the aim of creating a public space to accommodate the greatest number of people who were coming to see the papal address.The four-deep Tuscan colonnades surrounding the square are positioned in such a way as to create an optical illusion, embracing visitors in “the maternal arms of Mother Church”. The square’s centrepiece is a four-thousand-year-old Egyptian obelisk of red granite standing 25.5 metres tall, and it’s claimed that it was moved here from Alexandria by Caligula who wanted it for the Circus of Nero, the theatre for executions and crucifixions which stood on this site. St. Peter was among the vast number of early Christians who lost their lives at the hands of the Romans at this location. The paving that surrounds it was set with circular stones in 1817 to mark the signs of the zodiac, thus turning the obelisk and piazza into an enormous sundial. There are two fountains on either side of the square, the first designed by Carlo Maderno in 1613 and the second by Bernini in 1675 to match it.Standing on top of the colonnades looking over the square are numerous statues of saintly figures including former popes, John the Baptist, Christ the Redeemer and St. Peter and St. Paul who flank the huge steps leading up to the basilica. The square is always packed with tourists, pilgrims and members of the clergy who congregate there to soak up the atmosphere and pay homage to the pontiff. On Easter Day many thousands fill the square to witness his address given from the balcony of the basilica each year.The best way to reach the piazza is to cross the Tiber at Castello Sant’Angelo and walk up Via della Conciliazione – that way you approach the square in the manner its designer intended and get the ultimate visual impact. If you are taking the Metro, the nearest station is Ottaviano, which reaches the square from the other direction.
