Saint Peter in the Vatican

Saint Peter's stands on the west bank of the Tiber, on the site of the former Circus of Nero. Constantine I's first basilica was built between 318 and 322. Charlemagne was crowned emperor there in 800.

In 846 Saracen raiders sacked the shrine and damaged the apostle Peter's tomb, prompting Pope Leo IV to build the Leonine Walls. By the fifteenth century the old church was unsound, and Nicholas V and then Julius II decided on replacement.

Work on the Renaissance basilica began in 1506 under Donato Bramante; Michelangelo took over the design in 1547 and gave the church its great dome, and the building was completed in 1626. Gian Lorenzo Bernini furnished it with the bronze baldachin over the papal altar and the colonnaded square in front.