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1) The basilica of St. Peter with its square in front, today stands on the ruins of an ancient church whose foundations rested on the old walls of an original circus built by Emperor Caligola, half a kilometer long and which at the time already covered all the space that today occupies the basilica with its square.

2) The ancient church built, in the 4th century, by Emperor Constantine, who came to power in Rome, was already at that time the largest and most important church in Europe. It remained standing for about 1000 years but when it threatened to collapse, in the fifteenth century, the pontiffs decided to demolish it and build a new one, the one that we can admire today in its magnificence. In the destruction of the old basilica were lost immense and priceless artistic treasures of sculpture and painting and that Bramante razed to the ground with a blind fury so much that he was nicknamed “Master ruinante” (the craftsman who destroys). Centuries later, the Lanciani, the great archaeologist of the twentieth century, stated that the damage caused to Rome’s classical heritage was so great that it could be compared to ten years of barbarism suffered! (more…)