St. Peter's Square

Saint Peter's Square.

St. Peter's Square (Italian: Piazza San Pietro [ˈpjattsa sam ˈpjɛːtro], Latin: Forum Sancti Petri) is a large plaza in front of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City, Rome. The Pope frequently addresses pilgrims gathered in the square. It is named after Saint Peter.

At the centre of the square is an ancient Egyptian obelisk, erected at the current site in 1586. Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the square almost 100 years later^[1][2] A granite fountain constructed by Bernini in 1675 matches another fountain designed by Carlo Maderno in 1613.

class=notpageimage|

St. Peter's Square within Vatican City

References

1. William Tronzo, ed., St. Peter's in the Vatican, Cambridge University Press, 2005, page 149.
2. Franco Mormondo, Bernini: His Life and His Rome, University of Chicago Press, 2011, page 203.

Further reading

• Hibbert, Christopher, 1985, Rome: The biography of a city, London, Penguin.
• Norwich, John Julius, ed. 1975 Great Architecture of the World ISBN 0-394-49887-9
• Touring Club Italiano, Roma e Dintorni

Other websites

External video

Bernini's St. Peter's Square, Smarthistory

• stpetersbasilica.info Pages for all 140 Colonnade Saints
• Great Buildings On-line: Piazza of St. Peter's
• Roberto Piperno, "Piazza di S. Pietro": engravings by Vasi
• Mary Ann Sullivan, "St Peter's Piazza, Vatican City"
• Obeliscus Vaticanus LacusCurtius.com, The Vatican Obelisk, retrieved September 4, 2006
• The legend of the cry of Bresca Legendary Rome
• Rome, Nova Online, Mysteries of the Nile, A World of Obelisks: Rome pbs.org, retrieved September 4, 2006
• St. Peter's Square, Bernini's Fountain

41°54′8″N 12°27′25″E