Elena Odareeva / stock.adobe.com
CV NEWS FEED // At the end of October, Pope Francis will celebrate Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica and unveil the restored baldacchino created by 17th-century artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
According to an October 8 report from Vatican News, the baldacchino has been covered in scaffolding for the past eight months. The unveiling of the refurbished structure will take place on October 27, the date also marking the end of the Synod on Synodality.
The baldacchino is above the tomb of St. Peter and is the canopy structure over the main altar of the basilica, according to St. Peter’s Basilica Tickets website.
The structure took almost 10 years to fully construct and finish, with the project first beginning in 1624. Pope Urban VIII hired Bernini to create the baldacchino, the structure of which initially needed 6,200 kilograms of bronze to complete.
“The artist incorporated his signature Baroque-style of architecture that allowed exuberance and life-like movements revealing the grandeur of its subjects,” the website states, later adding:
He used bronze to create an illusion of cloth while creating lightweight spiral columns. He also incorporated pictorial elements and details, most of them related to the family of the Pope, and stayed true to the style of his art.
According to Vatican News, the baldacchino was last refurbished in 1758.
