St. Peter's Square
Vatican City
Rome Italy
2016

Saint Peter's Square is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave in Rome, directly west of the neighborhood of Borgo. Both the square and the basilica are named after Saint Peter, an apostle of Jesus whom Catholics consider to be the first Pope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Peter%27s_Square

Vatican City’s gigantic square, the St. Peter’s Square was built by Gian Lorenzo Bernini between 1656 and 1667 and is located on the St. Peter’s Basilica. This is the square where the giant St. Peter and Egyptian Obelisk can be found.

The St. Peter’s Square and St. Peter’s Basilica was a portion of the former Circus of Nero stadium. The former stadium stands about 560 meters and has a width of 80 meters.

One of the magnificent features that produced the equilibrium of the St. Peter’s Square is the obelisk and twin fountains. In 1586, Pope Sixtus V gave order to move the Egyptian Obelisk to the right side of the St. Peter’s Square, above the pontifical colonnade called Apostolic Palace. On both sides of the marble stone obelisk are the two identical fountains. The first one was designed by Maderno in 1612 and the twin fountain was installed by Bernini in 1675. The twin fountain is spraying water from Lake Bracciano and it reaches a height of about 14 meters into the air. This is the exact place of the St. Peter’s square where you can witness the Pope in Rome gives his annual Easter blessing, pronounces canonization and prays Angelus at 12 pm on Sundays from the window of his office with all attendees on the ground.

Additionally, St. Peter’s Square is encircled on both sides by 284 Doric columns and 88 pilasters, the semi-circular colonnades, which embody the overextended arms of the mother church embracing the world, according to Bernini.


The horse-drawn carriages you encounter while visiting Rome are picturesque and one of the old city’s most photographed scenes, as they take tourists from sight to sight. These particular vehicles are called “botticelle” in Italian, and they’re an attraction in their own right.

Indeed, the botticelle have been a staple of Rome for much longer than it looks. What you may see now standing by monuments is but the “modern-looking” version of the ancient Roman carriages. The name itself refers to the fact that they were not used for human transportation, at all: “botticelle” literally means “little barrels”, because these trolleys used to bring goods of various types to shops as well as houses.

This all changed, obviously, as cars and trucks became popular in Rome, and while it was common to see both peacefully coexisting until the mid-twentieth century, when the whole of Italy became a tourist destination… the botticelle turned to the growing number of visitors. For many travellers coming from completely different backgrounds, having such a picturesque experience helped them make a connection with the glorious past of a city of many contrasts – one that was modern or trying to be so while at the same time remaining strongly tied to its historic roots.