On the banks of the river Tiber, a few square meters in which to admire both St Peter's Basilica and the Castle of Sant'Angelo. This is the pulsating heart of Rome, capital of Italy, but also a state within a state: the Vatican City.
The Ponte Sant'Angelo, ornate bridge adorned with the statues of angels and saints, leads visitors directly to the Castle of Sant'Angelo. Today home to a National Museum, the castle was once a papal residence which allowed Pope Clement VII to escape the Sacking of Rome by the mutinous troops of Charles the V in 1527. The Passetto, a fortified corridor which permitted the Popes to move in secret from the Vatican to the Castle, can be visited by appointment only.
A more conventional way of accessing the Vatican is provided by the Via della Conciliazione, the road which Mussolini had built so as to link the Vatican City with the Italian houses of parliament. The road leads directly to St Peter's Square, a monumental elliptical space realised by the architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Alexander VII between 1656 and 1667. Two hundred meters of colonnade with 284 Doric columns and 140 statues, the square is large enough to contain some 60 thousand people.
Another 20 thousand worshippers can be accommodated in the Basilica of St Peter. Striking symbol of Christian faith, St Peter's was erected on the site of a pre-existing Paleo-Christian basilica built under the reign of Emperor Constantine in the place which, legend has it, St Peter was buried. It was in the 16th century that the St Peter's factory opened: a monumental building site which, for over a century, provided work for hundreds of craftsmen and artists, employed so as to construct the Basilica as we know it.
Among the many great artists involved in this magnificent project we find Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo and Bernini. Michelangelo designed the basilica's beautiful dome, which modern day Romans fondly call the cupolone. Unfortunately, he died before its completion, and it was Giacomo della Porta who had the honour of terminating the project. Inside the church, numerous important works of sculpture can be admired including Michelangelo's "Pietà" and Bernini's "Baldacchino".
Just outside the Basilica of St Peter, the Vatican Museums constitute another obligatory port of call, an occasion to see some of the world's most important works of art. An immense treasure chest, in which to find unique items of Etruscan and ancient Egyptian art, medieval tapestries, maps, and a seemingly infinite number of paintings. Well worth all the time spent queuing: the Sistine Chapel, embellished with the artworks of Perugino, Botticelli, Signorelli, Ghirlandaio and Michelangelo, whose Final Judgement never fails to astound all those who stand before it.
