Basilica di San Pietro

St. Peter's Basilica is the greatest Church in Christendom.

St. Peter’s Basilica covers six acres with Baroque Architecture, built with gold, marble, stucco, mosaic, and stone, all paid for with Indulgences, and contains many masterpieces of art and tombs of Saints.

The Bernini’s Bronze Baroque Altar Canopy rises seven stories with twisting Solomonic Columns. Bernini also created the alabaster dove window in the apse.

The bronze sculpture of St Peter pre-dates the structure and may have been created by Arnolfo di Cambio.

Michelangelo’s Pieta is perhaps the greatest work of art within St. Peter’s Basilica, and one of the greatest sculptures by the world’s greatest sculptor. Pieta is the formal name for art which depicts its subjects mourning the death of Jesus Christ.

As a master of the high-renaissance, Michelangelo rediscovers the skill, perspective, depth, realism, and anatomical-correctness of Ancient Greece and Rome in his art. This particular sculpture is impressive because in real life it would by physically difficult for Mary to hold Christ’s dead body like this, but Michelangelo make it look natural and as effortless as if cradling an infant. The result is evocative, you can tell what she is thinking.

This inscription just below the catwalk paraphrases Mathew 16:18-19.