St Peter's Basilica

Faith · Built on Peter's Tomb

Legend says the apostle Peter was martyred in Nero's circus and buried here; the church rises over his grave.

By tradition Peter, the chief disciple of Jesus, was crucified upside down near Nero's circus in Rome and buried on the Vatican hill. Three centuries later Constantine, the first Christian emperor, raised the original St Peter's over his tomb. The Catholic Church holds itself the succession of Peter, every pope a 'successor of Peter' — this church is the anchor of a chain of faith running two thousand years from a single fisherman.

Sources：Gospel of Matthew 16:18　·　Archaeological excavations beneath the Vatican Hill

↑ Because of the last layer：Precisely because it was the first church of all Christendom, the Church spared no cost to summon the greatest architects, generation after generation.

Arts · Michelangelo's Dome

Michelangelo in old age designed the vast dome; Bernini shaped the piazza into two embracing arms.

The rebuilt St Peter's gathered the strongest roster of the Renaissance and Baroque: Bramante drew the plan, Raphael took over, and Michelangelo in his seventies designed the great dome that still rules the Roman skyline (he went back to measure the Pantheon for it). A century later the Baroque master Bernini shaped the oval colonnade before it like two embracing arms, turning the piazza into the gesture of 'the Church embracing the world.'

Sources：Construction archives of St. Peter's Basilica　·　Vasari, Lives of the Artists

↑ Because of the last layer：Precisely because it had to pay for the greatest architects and the most magnificent sanctuary, the Church took the perilous road of selling indulgences.

Faith · How One Church Split Christianity

Selling indulgences to fund its rebuilding directly provoked Martin Luther’s Reformation.

Rebuilding St Peter's cost an astronomical sum, and to raise it the Church hawked 'indulgences' across Europe — pay, and your punishment for sin is remitted. In 1517 the German monk Martin Luther, pushed past endurance, posted his Ninety-Five Theses in protest, igniting the Reformation and splitting Western Christianity into Catholic and Protestant. And the ones underwriting that indulgence financing for the Church were the Fugger bankers — wealth, faith, and art twisted into a single cord on this church.

Sources：Martin Luther, Ninety-five Theses (1517)　·　Historical records of the Fugger family and the financing of indulgences