Vatican City · VA

Saint Peter’s Basilica

Rising from the western edge of Rome across the Tiber, St. Peter's Basilica is the beating heart of the Catholic world and one of the most ambitious buildings ever raised. Its Late Renaissance and Baroque nave, crowned by Michelangelo's dome and swept around by Bernini's colonnade, can gather up to 20,000 worshippers at once. Entering is free, yet the artistic and spiritual riches within rival any museum on earth. Built over the traditional tomb of the apostle Saint Peter, the basilica was raised between 1506 and 1626 on the site of Constantine's 4th-century church, with Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo and Bernini each leaving their mark. Today visitors move beneath a dome that soars to roughly 136 metres and through a nave some 187 metres long, past Michelangelo's tender Pietà and Bernini's towering bronze Baldacchino.