1,300 YEARS LATER
On November 18, 1626, thirteen hundred years to the day after Pope Sylvester I dedicated Constantine’s church, Urban VIII consecrated the new Basilica of St. Peter. A row of cardinals in crimson cassocks and skullcaps, banked on each side of him like walls of flames, stood at solemn attention. Clouds of incense wafted over them and dissipated in the immense dome. The construction yard had been tidied for the occasion, the square swept clean, and long horizontal canopies of canvas extended from either end of the façade like the tails of the papal miter.
All of Rome turned out for the ceremony, just as it had when Julius II laid the first stone on that memorable April Sunday in 1506. Noble Roman families and Vatican bankers resplendent in the finest silks and brocades, the Swiss Guard halberd-straight and striking in their striped uniforms, the entire Curia, dignitaries, ambassadors, and legates from the courts of Europe, conquistadores back from the New World, artists and architects, stonecutters and carpenters, gilders and artisans of every kind, filled the nave of Maderno. They pressed against the piers of Bramante and crowded under the dome of Michelangelo and della Porta.
They came in carriages and cavalcades, intense young aspirants to the Society of Jesus in their black soutanes, Franciscan friars in rough brown habits, cinched at the waist with hemp, who had walked from Assisi, cowled Benedictines from as far south as the Abbey of Monte Cassino, princes and peasants, saints and sinners, clerics and laity. They streamed through the five doors and pushed into the aisles of the Basilica. The overflow crammed into the open square around the obelisk and jammed the surrounding streets.
Turning to face the throng, Urban VIII intoned the apostolic blessing, consecrating the new Basilica of St. Peter. It was a Roman holiday.
Bells pealed from every church in Rome, and those who couldn’t attend in person paused in their homes and fields, in their shops and ateliers at the first chime. They looked to the west where the dome of all domes hung white on blue in the clarion day, and made the sign of the cross.
For sheer size, the building was a marvel. It was so high that the entire Pantheon could fit beneath its dome, and it covered an area so large that Notre Dame of Paris and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul could both fit inside it with room to spare.
Michelangelo had imagined a pure interior, the architectural space and articulation uncluttered by decorative embellishments, the porous and pockmarked travertine defining the space and giving the Basilica strength and transcendence. But infinitely patient artisans of mosaics and gilt were dressing the interior in a sumptuous display.
Since Nicholas V, twenty-seven popes over a span of 178 years had imagined this day. They had already spent 46,800,052 ducats* and paid an incalculable price—the Basilica of St. Peter had cost his successors the unity of the Church. And still the building was not done. The basic construction was complete, but the last genius to put his signature on the Basilica was just beginning his work.