St. Peter's Baldachin - Description and History

Description and History

The bronze and gilded baldachin was the first of Bernini's works to combine sculpture and architecture and represents an important development in Baroque church interior design and furnishing. The canopy rests upon four helical columns each of which stands on a high marble plinth. The columns support a cornice which curves inwards in the middle of each side. Above this, four twice life size angels stand at the corners behind whom four large volutes rise up to a second smaller cornice which in turn supports the gilded cross on a sphere, a symbol of the world redeemed by Christianity.

The four columns are 20 metres or 66 feet high. The base and capital were cast separately and the shaft of each column was cast in three sections. Their helical form was derived from the smaller marble helical columns once thought to have been brought to Rome by the Emperor Constantine from Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem and which were used in the Old Saint Peter's Basilica (See the article Solomonic column). From the cornice hangs a bronze semblance of the scalloped and tasselled border that typically trimmed the papal baldacchino. The structure is decorated with detailed motifs including heraldic emblems of the Barberini family such as bees and laurel leaves. The underside of the canopy and directly above the officiating pope is a radiant sun – another emblem of the Barberini – within which is the Holy Spirit.

The source of the bronze to make the structure was an issue of contemporary controversy as it was believed to have been taken from the roof or portico ceiling of the ancient Roman Pantheon, though Urban's accounts say that about ninety percent of the bronze from the Pantheon was used for a cannon, and that the bronze for the baldachin came from Venice. A well-known satirical lampoon left attached to the ancient ‘speaking’ statue of Pasquino on a corner of the Piazza Navona, said: Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini or ‘What the barbarians did not do, the Barberini did’.

At this early stage in their careers, and before the bitter rivalry between the two ensued, Bernini worked in collaboration with Francesco Borromini who made drawings of the structure and who may also have contributed to its design. Various other artistic colleagues were also involved including his father Pietro Bernini, his brother Luigi Bernini, Stefano Maderno, François Duquesnoy, Andrea Bolgi and Giuliano Finelli who contributed to the sculptural decoration.

There remained an issue that Bernini was not to resolve until later in his career. In a Latin cross church, the high altar should be placed in the chancel at the end of the longitudinal axis and yet in St. Peter's it was located in the centre of the crossing. Bernini sought a solution whereby the high altar above the tomb of the first Pope of the Catholic Church could be reconciled with tradition. With his design for the Cathedra Petri or Chair of Saint Peter (1657–66) at the apsidal end of the chancel, Bernini completed his visual concetto or design idea; the congregation had a perspectivised view down the nave to the image framed by the baldachin which compressed the distance between the crossing and the Chair of Saint Peter in the chancel, reconciling the Prince of the Apostles' tomb, his implied presence on the Chair and his legitimate successor officiating at the ceremonies.