Basilica Of San Pietro And Colonnade In Front

Joseph Bolzern (Kriens 1828, -Rome, 1901)

Basilica of San Pietro and colonnade in front

Oil on canvas, cm 53.5 x 70.5

With frame, cm 67,5 x 85

Signed and dated in the lower left: Bolzern. J. pinx Rome 1889

An undisputed symbol of the history of Rome, St Peter’s Square owes its final shape to a long and meditated gestation. Encircling one of the thirteen oldest obelisks in the capital, the Egyptian red granite from the city of Hieropolis, the square paid homage to the transcendental beauty martyrion (memory) petrino since the time of Constantinople. However, it was only from the seventeenth century that the project to make San Pietro the symbolic center of Christianity came to fruition, remodelling the ancient structure of the ancient basilica, the four-portico so-called "del Paradiso" connected to it and the entire plain in front. Pope Julius II entrusted to Bramante 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 by the rethinking of the square with a centralized focal direction, but Bramante could not complete the task due to his premature death. Of the subsequent restoration projects of the basilica, to which contributed Michelangelo, Fra' Giocondo (1433-1515), Giuliano da Sangallo (1445-1516), Raffaello (1483-1520) and Antonio da Sangallo (1485-1546) remain models and designs of volute proposed to the pope in seat. Finally demolished the last remains of the basilica costantinopolitana by order of Paul V, the Maderno began the extension works, surpassed by the advent of Bernini, urging with innovative proposals related to the interior and exterior of the basilica. The characteristic elliptical shape of the imposing Bernini colonnade still commands today the collective imagination of the Vatican, suggestively completing the doctrinal metaphor of the square. Commissioned to Bernini by Pope Alexander VII, the colonnade still consists of 284 columns on four rows. After eleven years of work (1656-1667) and more than forty thousand cubic meters of travertine arrived from Tivoli by land or dragged along the banks of the Tiber by horses, the square shone with renewed splendor. 

Reproduced in minute detail the Basilica of Saint Peter and its colonnade were for forty years a daily sight for Joseph Bolzern (Kriens 1828, -Rome, 1901), author of the work. Painter of Swiss origin, born on 4 April 1828 in Kriens (small town in the canton of Lucerne) was a skilled painter and lithographer. His career began in the canton of Bern, where he trained as a lithographer before becoming a master draughtsman. His life changes completely when he decides to move to Rome and join the armed corps of the Swiss Guards. Here for over forty years he tried to protect the papal throne using free time as a creative moment, creating pictures with views of the Eternal City, such as the one examined here, but also altars 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 connection with the pope through a simple daily scene. At the bottom of the painting you can see a golden car with a battalion of soldiers on horseback, it is Pope Leo XIII (ascended to the papal throne in 1878 until his death in 1903) Who is greeted by a small crowd of joyful faithful.