This architectural work is placed at the Vatican City, in Rome, Italy. It is a massive square located in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. At the center of the square there is an Egyptian obelisk, erected at the current place in 1586. Gian Lorenzo Bernini was the man who designed this marvelous architecture, including the colonnades and a granite fountain. The construction of this architectural work was between 1656 and 1667. It was reformed after the construction of the basilica. It’s part of a religious building and enclosing the square, there is a colonnade that contains 140 statues of saints and martyrs of the catholic history.
The commissioner of this architectural work was the Pope.
The open space placed before the basilica was redesigned by Bernini from 1565 to 1667, he was directed by the Pope Alexander VII. Bernini had worked in the interior of the basilica a lot of time, for decades. It was an urban architecture with religious symbolism.The commissioner of this architectural work was the Pope.
In the middle of the square there is a big Egyptian obelisk of red granite of 25.5 meters tall supported on bronze lions. The obelisk, at first, was originally erected at Heliopolis, an important city of the Ancient Egypt, and it has been successfully moved three times. The Vatican Obelisk is the only obelisk in Rome that has not toppled since ancient Roman times. In the square there were also two fountains, one designed by Bernini and the other one designed by Carlo Maderno. The surface of the square was of 340 x 240 metres.
In his colonnade, Bernini used the Tuscan (form) and the Doric order. The Tuscan colonnades are four deep colonnades. And there were 244 Doric columns. The idea was to show a strict and austere aspect to give more importance to the Basilica’s façade. This will increase the size when you look at it. The materials used to build the colonnade were stones and marble. They are 15 meters tall.
In the colonnades there is an important characteristic of Baroque art: Bernini tries to represent movement with the ovato tondo’s long axis, that was parallel to the basilica's façade. The colonnades form the square, also known as “piazza”. This colonnades define the space and mask a large selection of Vatican structures.
The paving is composed of radiating lines in travertine marble to relieve what might otherwise be a sea of cobblestones. In 1817 circular stones were used to mark the noon with this circulars stones’ shadows. For this reason, we can deduce that the obelisk is a giant sun clock.
In general, the theme of this work was religious, such as in the Baroque works of art.
A curious piece of information about this, is that the Palace of the Concorde was made by copying the square of Saint Peter’s Basilica, and the obelisk and the fountains of this palace are placed exactly in the same place that the obelisk and the fountains of the square of this basilica.
And here you have a photo of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
Sources of
the information:
From this
site web, I have read some things but I have not included anything:
http://es.slideshare.net/claracan/plaza-y-baslica-de-san-pedro-4041134
http://es.slideshare.net/claracan/plaza-y-baslica-de-san-pedro-4041134
Sources of
the pictures:
I have used
wordreference too to look for the meaning of words I didn’t know.
http://www.wordreference.com/
http://www.wordreference.com/
Hello,
ReplyDeleteThese are my corrections and comments:
-...Gian Lorenzo Bernini was the man who designed this marvelous architecture,
-... It’s part of a religious building and enclosing the square, there is a colonnade that contains 140 statues of saints and martyrs of the atholic history.
-...Bernini had worked in the interior of the basilica for a lot of time, for decades.
-... and people always have praised it as a masterpiece of Baroque.
-...In his colonnade, Bernini used the Tuscan (form) and the Doric order.
- The materials used to build the colonnade were (they used) stones and marble. The columns are 15 meters tall.
In the colonnades there is an important characteristic of Baroque art: Bernini tries to represent movement with the ovato tondo’s long axis, that was parallel to the basilica's façade. The colonnades form the square, also known as “piazza”, (This colonnades) define the space and mask a large selection of Vatican structures.
- ...The paving is composed of radiating lines in travertine marble to relieve what might otherwise be a sea of cobblestones.
- In general, the theme of this work was religious, such as in the Baroque works of art.
- A curious piece of information about this,
One thing yiu haven't explained is why Bernini used the oval form: he did it to symbolize the arms of the Church embracing the believers.
You haven’t connected the features of Baroque with your work of art. The only thing you’ve said is that it’s a religious building, but in fact a square is not a building and the main purpose of a square is to create an open space to facilitate the concentration of people. You didn’t speak about the interest of shocking the audience, the use of curves and oval forms… And you’ve copied some things literally from the English Wikipedia. You have to think more, Gema.
Your mark is 8. Bye.