500 years ago, Pope Julius II laid the cornerstone for a new basilica of St. Peter. The building of this new basilica & the removal of the basilica of Constantine not only set to work an extraordinary group of architects and artists but it also led directly to revolution in Western civilization. The pope's need to finance the ambitious project ignited northern Europe's Reformation. The author shows how successive artists shaped and reshaped the building, how new popes confronted the legacies of their predecessors and left their own imprints on the basilica. Bramante, Michelangelo, and Bernini had major control over one or another aspect of the vast, century-long project, and the building well illustrates the passage from a pure Renaissance aesthetic to the florid, excessive decorative impulses of the baroque.
If you are a PhD in Art or Renaissance History, this book is probably not deep enough for you. But if you want a readable, interesting account of the people who built the basilica and the period in which it was built, this would be a excellent choice.
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