The first thing that you will notice about Saint Peter's is that is it large. It is massive. It is difficult to really photograph this. The curved colonnades that reach around the plaza like a pair of gargantuan arms to gather you in are hard to grasp in return. The Piazza within these arms is filled with row upon row of chairs, presumably for services here. The people are routed along the right hand side, through security. Be sure to cover your shoulders and knees. Immodesty is frowned on here. You may be able to buy a pair of paper pants if necessary, but the cost is not so modest.
There are nuns and tourists here. there are Swiss guards here and there. We wandered first through the Vatican grotto, beneath the church, where many of the popes are buried. Our visit fell only a few years after the death of Pope John Paul II, and the passageway was crowding with people, several of whom wept quietly in the dimly lit, low ceiling hall. We did not linger long, feeling a little too out of place, too much like a tourist at a funeral, and headed into the church itself.
Because everything is on a grand scale, it is hard to really feel it without other people for scale. Those cherubs are nearly as large as adults. The statues in the nooks are really Goliaths.
Everything in the rich hue of various marbles. Through the years of its construction, the hands of many designed its various structures, most famously Michaelangelo.
It is one of Michaelangelo's own works, the Pieta, which is the most famous piece of sculpture within the church. Christ's body, draped across the lap of his mother, the statue is highly finished and highly detailed. Like David, the Pieta is protected behind a barrier, because someone once took a hammer to it.
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