Jerusalem on the Hill: Rome and the Vision of Saint Peter's Basilica in the Renaissance

This author analyzes the Renaissance rebuilding of Saint Peter's basilica as a mirror of the political fortunes of the papacy. The project to revitalize the basilica as the center of a resurgent Church proceeded in step with the goal to reassert papal authority across the Italian peninsula, and to extend that authority to the Eastern Mediterranean by mounting a crusade to recover the Holy Land.By embedding references to the Holy Land in the fabric of the new basilica, the architecture itself …