Dimensions
144 x 206 x 27mm
The Vatican's St Peter's is crammed with works of art, its dome designed and painted by Michelangelo and a huge baroque basilica - how and why was it created the way it is?
The story of St. Peter's begins in the 1st century CE with the Hippodrome of Nero, one of two places where the Apostle Peter may have been crucified. 250 years later Constantine the Great marked the supposed site of Peter's tomb in an ancient cemetery (still there in the Grottoes under the church) with a great basilica. That in turn was replaced over a hundred-year period by a series of competitive renaissance and baroque Popes using the greatest artists of their day.
St Peter's is apart from anything else immediately recognisable to us all from its recurring television appearances as the centre of the Catholic world. Here Keith Miller offers a rewarding account of a world-famous building: who built it, what it looks like and why; and how it affects the tourist or pilgrim.
An intricate history, telling biography and the study of great art and architecture all play their part in a book that is a brilliant debut.
