By Quinton Admundson, The Catholic Register
[Toronto – Canadian Catholic News] – St. Peter’s Baldachin (Baldacchino in Italian) in Rome is undergoing its first major restoration since 1758, thanks to the efforts of the Knights of Columbus.
For the remainder of 2024, the gilded bronze canopy, which grandly marks the spot of St. Peter’s Tomb, will remain hidden from public view while it undergoes maintenance. When on display, the 95-foot-tall and 120,000-pound ornate masterwork is situated directly underneath the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica and above the Papal Altar.
This revitalization, costing approximately 700,000 euros (around $1 million), is due for completion before the 2025 Jubilee declared by Pope Francis.
Workers are erecting metal scaffolding around the 100-foot-tall baldachin over the main altar in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Feb. 21, 2024. The scaffolding, which will cover the entire piece, will allow restorers to start cleaning, repairing and revitalizing this masterpiece designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the 17th century. (Photo by Robert Duncan, Catholic News Service)
This year is the 400th anniversary of famed Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini beginning to sculpt the baldachin alongside a team of artists and craftsmen at the behest of Pope Urban VIII. The ciborium, boasting four twisted columns adorned with laurel branches and cherubs and supported by onlooking metal angels, required nearly a decade to complete.
Drones were deployed by the Fabric of St. Peter’s, the institution charged with conserving and maintaining the basilica, to capture over 6,000 photographs of the canopy that rivals a 10-storey building. The images revealed the structure has significantly decayed over time. The deterioration is partially precipitated by the sheer number of visitors — sometimes up to 50,000 — to the basilica daily. All these bodies significantly affect the temperature and humidity of the space, enough to corrode the bronze and iron and cause the wood to expand and compress continually.
During a Jan. 11 press conference in the Holy See press office to unveil the monumental and time-sensitive undertaking, Patrick Kelly, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, said the principles of charity and unity, cherished by the Catholic fraternal organization, are honoured through this endeavour.
“Resting below the glorious dome of St. Peter’s, it reminds us that God has chosen His dwelling among us,” said Kelly. “He has come down to Earth in the person of Jesus Christ — the source of our unity and embodiment of charity.
“And the altar that the Baldacchino crowns is literally built above the Rock — the tomb of St. Peter, the prince of the Apostles. And it is the altar where Christ’s sacrifice is repeatedly offered by the successor of Peter himself.”
Arthur Peters, deputy supreme knight, said this titanic project continues a cherished tradition of partnership between the Knights and the Bishop of Rome.
“We’re putting our charitable efforts not only towards our local parish communities but also towards the Vatican,” said Peters, who is also executive director of ShareLife, the charitable fundraising arm of the Archdiocese of Toronto. “We not only donate money to the Pope’s charity each year, but we have paid for, I think, 17 restoration projects over time. The Knights have come together collectively to support this project.”
Over the past 40 years, the Knights of Columbus, founded in 1882, has sponsored repairs on the Façade of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Grottoes and a 14th-century, seven-foot-tall wooden crucifix present in the original basilica.
Peters has visited the Vatican four times and said he marvels at these historic works of art and architectural ingenuity, particularly St. Peter’s Baldachin.
“You have to marvel that this was built before cranes,” said Peters. “This was built before machinery. You look at the beauty of what has been done, the architecture, it’s incredible. To think this was all done before technology.”
Kelly said restoring Bernini’s Baldacchino, akin to the previous collaborations with the Vatican, “is much more than just historical and architectural renewal — as important as those are.”
“We recall Christ’s promise to Peter and His entrustment of the Keys of the Kingdom, and with Peter and like Peter, we confess to the Lord, ‘You are the Messiah, the son of the living God!’”
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Bernini’s baldachin masterpiece disappears from public view until Holy Year
By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service
[Vatican City – Like a giant Tinkertoy construction, a skeletal tower of scaffolding slowly inched its way up the twisting bronze columns of the baldachin over the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Workers on the ground picked through piles of shiny metal platforms, poles, clamps and couplers to then hoist them up high with pulleys to their workmates above. They had begun erecting the scaffolding after Mass on Ash Wednesday Feb. 14 and it reached almost halfway by Feb. 21.
The 100-foot-tall baldachin was set to be completely covered by metal scaffolding before Easter to allow a team of 10 to 12 restorers to start cleaning, repairing and revitalizing the masterpiece designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1624 and completed around 1633.
The biggest problem facing the restorers “is getting there, that is, to be close enough” to the bronze and wood structures and many decorative details that need to be restored, Alberto Capitanucci told Catholic News Service.
Capitanucci, the head engineer of the Fabbrica di San Pietro — the office responsible for upkeep of the basilica — said the baldachin is a monumental architectural structure that is as high as a 10-story building.
But it is mostly empty space with its four fluted spiral bronze columns, each set upon a massive marble pedestal alongside the marble steps leading to the main altar over the tomb of St. Peter. The most delicate part of the structure is the canopy above, he said, which is made entirely of wood.
The wooden ceiling “is the size of a vessel, that is, it was designed to be the wooden planking of a boat,” Capitanucci said.
Despite its enormous size, Bernini wanted the baldachin to resemble the light, open and airy cloth-covered canopy used in processions of the Blessed Sacrament. The term “baldachin” or “baudekin” comes from a special brocade fabric made in Baghdad and traditionally used for processional canopies.
The twisting pattern on the gilded columns makes them look lighter and draws the eye upward along decorations of snaking branches of olive and laurel, bees and lizards, until it reaches the top which resembles canopy brocade and tassels blowing in the wind, he said. The top of the baldachin is meant to look like “a billowing sail” of a boat.
The angels holding floral garlands and standing at the four corners are 13 feet high, he said, and four scroll-like ornaments, shaped like dolphin backs, go from the corners up to a globe that supports a cross, which is 40 feet tall. There are four pairs of cherubs holding up the keys of St. Peter, a papal tiara and the sword and book of St. Paul.
What looks small from below is, in reality, enormous in size, Capitanucci said, indicating that the bees on top are as long as a briefcase. Pope Urban VIII, who hired Bernini to design the baldachin, belonged to the Barberini family, whose coat of arms consists of three bees.
Capitanucci said they used drones to take over 6,000 photographs of the hard-to-reach canopy and its inner ceiling featuring the dove of the Holy Spirit surrounded by golden fire. The up-close images will help them plan how to proceed with the restoration, he said.
The entire structure will be covered in sheer cloth to shield workers from the public, he said, and still let in lots of natural light.
And, once the scaffolding is completely up, the wooden box now protecting the main altar will be removed so the altar can still be used for papal ceremonies for the rest of the year. The entire restoration should be completed by the end of December for the start of the Holy Year.
A cherub holding the keys of St. Peter and one holding up a papal tiara can be seen in this close-up photograph of the wooden canopy of the baldachin over the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican in this undated photo. (CNS photo/Fabbrica di San Pietro)
Franciscan Father Enzo Fortunato, director of communication for St. Peter’s Basilica, told CNS the baldachin “is the linchpin of the basilica.”
It draws attention to the main altar, which is “the heart, where the Eucharistic sacrifice takes place, the Eucharistic celebration that is the source and summit of Christian life,” he said.
The current restoration project, funded by the Knights of Columbus, marks only the second restoration since the baldachin was built, he said, the last restoration being in the late 1700s.
When works of art are preserved well, he said, it keeps alive the belief that “beauty leads to God” and it reminds people “what human genius can create.”
The baldachin also symbolizes that it is possible for all people to work together to create something spectacular, Father Fortunato said. Many other artists worked with Bernini to build the masterpiece, including his fiercest rival, Francesco Borromini.
“This makes us understand that teamwork, working together, always bears beautiful and good fruit,” the Franciscan friar said.
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© OSV News / Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. 2024 – from CNS Vatican bureau, used with permission