- Feb 5, 2002
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Two popes who played instrumental roles in building the world’s largest church now gaze at one another with renewed clarity in the apse of St. Peter’s Basilica.
After decades of accumulating dirt, dust and grime, the funerary statues of Popes Paul III and Urban VIII were returned to their original luster as part of a broader restoration campaign inside the basilica, which included conservation work on sculpture surfaces and a new lighting installation in the Vatican necropolis below the basilica.
Pope Paul III, who died in 1549, summoned Michelangelo to take over the basilica’s design after its construction was stalled — a move that redirected and accelerated its completion. More than a century later, Pope Urban VIII consecrated the completed church in 1626, dedicating it exactly 120 years after the first stone was laid for the new basilica on April 18, 1506, by Pope Julius II.
The restored tombs in dark bronze and shimmering gold stand opposite one another in the apse, framing Baroque master Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s monumental sculpture of the chair of St. Peter.
Continued below.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
After decades of accumulating dirt, dust and grime, the funerary statues of Popes Paul III and Urban VIII were returned to their original luster as part of a broader restoration campaign inside the basilica, which included conservation work on sculpture surfaces and a new lighting installation in the Vatican necropolis below the basilica.
Pope Paul III, who died in 1549, summoned Michelangelo to take over the basilica’s design after its construction was stalled — a move that redirected and accelerated its completion. More than a century later, Pope Urban VIII consecrated the completed church in 1626, dedicating it exactly 120 years after the first stone was laid for the new basilica on April 18, 1506, by Pope Julius II.
The restored tombs in dark bronze and shimmering gold stand opposite one another in the apse, framing Baroque master Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s monumental sculpture of the chair of St. Peter.
Continued below.
The restoration of two papal monuments in St. Peter's Basilica
Restoration of Popes Paul III and Urban VIII’s monuments in St. Peter's Basilica enhances both artistic heritage and visitor experience.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
