St. Peter's Basilica in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City with the famous four-thousand-year-old Egyptian obelisk.

---

This image shows St. Peter's Basilica in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City with the famous four-thousand-year-old Egyptian obelisk. St. Peter's Square (Piazza San Pietro) is a massive plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City, the papal enclave surrounded by Rome, Italy. At the centre of the square is a four-thousand-year-old Egyptian obelisk, erected at the current site in 1568. Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the square almost 100 years later, including the massive Tuscan colonnades, four columns deep, which embrace visitors in "the maternal arms of Mother Church." A granite fountain constructed by Bernini in 1675 matches another fountain designed by Carlo Maderno dating to 1613. St. Peter's Basilica (Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano) is a Late Renaissance church located within Vatican City. Designed principally by Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, St. Peter's is the most renowned work of Renaissance architecture and remains one of the largest churches in the world.

---

Size: 5184px × 3456px
Location: St. Peter's Square, Vatican City.
Photo credit: © Stuart Robertson / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: basilica, bernini, bramante, carlo, città, city, colonnades, color, colour, del, della, di, dome, donato, enclave, famous, forum, gian, horizontal, image, landscape, lorenzo, maderno, michelangelo, night, obelisk, outdoors, papal, people, peter, petri, piazza, pietro, place, renaissance, san, sancti, square, st., state, stato, tuscan, vatican, vaticano, wp