Joseph Bolzern (1828 -1901), Saint Peter’s Basilica And Colonnade In Front

Joseph Bolzern (Kriens 1828, -Rome, 1901)

Saint Peter’s Basilica and colonnade in front

Oil on canvas, cm 53,5 70,5 - With frame, cm 67,5 x 85 

Signed and dated lower left: Bolzern. J. pinx Roma 1889

Undisputed symbol of the history of Rome, Piazza San Pietro owes its final structure to a long and meditated gestation. Surrounding one of the thirteen oldest obelisks of the capital, the Egyptian one in red granite from the city of Hieropolis, the square paid tribute of transcendental beauty the martyrion (memory) Petrine since Constantinople. However, it was only from the seventeenth century that the project of making Saint Peter the symbolic center of Christianity was realized, remodelling the ancient layout of the ancient basilica, the so-called "Paradise" quadriportico and the entire plain in front of it. Pope Julius II entrusted Bramante with the rearrangement of the longitudinal façade of the building, imposing a consequent rethinking of the entire square. The memory of the ancient Neronian circus was supplanted through the rethinking of the square in a centralized focal direction, but Bramante could not complete the task because of his untimely death. Of the successive projects for the reorganization of the basilica, to which Michelangelo, Fra' Giocondo (1433-1515), Giuliano da Sangallo (1445-1516), Raffaello (1483-1520) and Antonio da Sangallo (1485-1546) contributed, models and drawings from time to time proposed to the pope remain. Definitively demolished the last remains of the basilica of Constantinople at the behest of Paul V, Maderno began the work of extension, outclassed by the advent of Bernini, pressing with innovative proposals related to the interior and exterior of the basilica.The characteristic elliptical shape of the imposing Bernini colonnade still commands the collective Vatican imagination today, completing the doctrinal metaphor of the square. Commissioned to Bernini by Pope Alexander VII, the colonnade still consists of 284 columns in four rows. After eleven years of work (1656-1667) and more than forty thousand cubic meters of travertine coming from Tivoli by land or dragged along the banks of the Tiber by horses, the square shone in a renewed splendor. 

Reproduced in detail the Basilica of San Pietro and its colonnade were for forty years a daily vision for Jospeh Bolzern ((Kriens 1828, -Rome, 1901), author of the work. A Swiss painter, born on 4 April 1828 in Kriens (a small town in the canton of Lucerne), he was a skilled painter and lithographer. His career began in the canton of Bern, where, after an initial training as a lithographer, he became a master of drawing. His life changed completely when he decided to move to Rome and enter the armed corps of the Swiss Guards. Here for over forty years he tries to protect the papal throne by using his free time as a creative moment, creating paintings with views of the Eternal City, such as the one examined here, but also altarpieces for Swiss and German churches. 

The artist with this painting seems to want to celebrate not only the grandeur of such an important place for Christianity, but also the work done by the Swiss guards and their deep bond with the pope through a simple daily scene. At the bottom center of the painting you can see a golden car with a battalion of soldiers on horseback, it is Pope Leo XIII (ascended the papal throne in 1878 until his death in 1903) that is welcomed by a small crowd of festive faithful. 

Pope Leo XIII (Latin: Leo PP. XIII, born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci), It is remembered in the history of the popes of the modern era as a pontiff who considered that among the tasks of the Church included pastoral activity in the socio-political field. If with him there was not the promulgation of further dogmas after that of papal infallibility solemnly proclaimed by the First Vatican Council, he is nevertheless remembered as pope of the encyclicals: He wrote as many as 86, in order to overcome the isolation in which the Holy See had found itself after the loss of temporal power with the Unification of Italy. His most famous encyclical was the Rerum Novarum, with which a turning point took place in the Catholic Church, now ready to face the challenges of modernity as an international spiritual guide. In this sense he was correctly given the name of «pope of the workers» and «social pope»:

The object is in good condition

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