REBUILDING OF SAINT PETER - ROMAINTERACTIVE

REBUILDING OF SAINT PETER

Pope Julius II opted for the rebuilding of St. Peter's and in 1505 entrusted the supervision of works on Donato Bramante. The grand plan of Bramante, which resulted in the destruction of the presbytery of the ancient basilica, attracted fierce controversy, in pole position Michelangelo, Bramante enemy and also Erasmus of Rotterdam entered the party of harsh critics.

However, Julius II died in 1513 and a year later Bramante, Leo X, who succeeded Julius II, appointed Raphael superintendent of works of the Vatican Basilica, with the help of Giuliano da Sangallo the Younger.

Raphael changed the design of Bramante grafting on the cross, begun by Bramante himself, a longitudinal body, returning to the Latin cross. When Raphael untimely died in 1520 he was succeeded by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger with the help of Baldassarre Peruzzi.
The work proceeded slowly, both for the continuing controversies, and because the Sack of Rome in 1527 stopped all activities. Only in 1538 the work was resumed and Antonio da Sangallo, to comfort his project left a detailed wooden model.

Antonio da Sangallo died in 1546, then it was the turn of the seventies Michelangelo to take over the work and at the same time to twist the design of Raphael and Antonio da Sangallo, obviously furious controversy broke out.
Between controversies and collapses the work proceeded very slowly, so that when Michelangelo died in 1564, the dome was unfinished, still stopped at the height of the tambour.
Finally in 1585, Felice Peretti, who became Pope with the name of Sixtus V, appointed Giacomo Della Porta with the assistance of Domenico Fontana, the task to build the dome.

Giacomo Della Porta, both for static and for aesthetic reasons, changed the design of Michelangelo, which included a hemispherical dome 21 meters high, and built an ellipsoidal dome 28 meters high, much more slender than the one designed by Michelangelo.

Made the dome remained to complete the basilica, in 1602 Pope Clement VIII gave the direction of the work to Carlo Maderno, who largely restored the project of Raphael and Sangallo, adding the grand facade that we all know.