Eight Hours In Rome

I recently had the opportunity to enjoy a 8 hour layover in Rome. Rome is a big place, so I picked something to see which could be thoroughly covered in 8 hours minus taxi time. St Peter's Basilica and the Castel St. Angelo were the selections of the day.

St. Peter's sits at the heart of the Vatican City; independent country, seat of the Pope and heart of the Catholic Church. The city, in turn, sits in the middle of the city of Rome. It has been independent of Rome and Italy since 1929. It is the smallest country in the world, by any measure.

The Vatican City consists of far more than just St. Peter's Basilica and Square. There are delicious museums, well manicured gardens, an art gallery and of course offices of the various bodies of the Holy See. But the Basilica and Square are the heart of it all.

St. Peter's Square, in front of the Basilica, is by tradition the site of the crucifixion and burial of St. Peter in 64 A.D. Interestingly, at the time it was a Roman circus, Nero's Circus, of which the stolen Egyptian obelisk from Heliopolis still remains as the focal point. More recently, the actual burial site of St. Peter has been unearthed north of the circus in a pre-Constantinian necropolis. I intend to visit him on my next opportunity.

St Peter's Basilica itself is immense. It is the second Basilica, having been built on top of the original which Emperor Constantine consecrated in 329 A.D. The interior of the building itself is magnificent. It is hard to grasp just how big it really is, even when standing inside the dome and looking down.

Constantine's original basilica was built over the traditional tomb of St. Peter. For me, the tomb of Pope John Paul II in the grottos under the Basilica was perhaps the most moving moment of the visit. While I can remember the Pope and his moral leadership in life, I was struck by the emotional reverance of a Filipino man who was kneeling in tears, praying in front of the tomb. He was surrounded by a shuffling, oblivious crowd of tourists who parted around him as they passed. This man was however so committed, so absorbed by his passion, that he had closed his eyes and blocked these hundreds from his mind. It was moving just to see him.


The Catholic Church has of course not survived for 2000 years on faith alone. The Pope has a personal bodyguard of 134 Pontifical Swiss Guards. Since 1506, the Guards have been recruited from Catholic males with prior service in the Swiss military to provide personal protection for the Pope. To this day the Guards continue in this tradition, wearing the uniforms and carrying the weapons of the 16th century.

The guards played a role in protecting the Pope at the Castel St. Angelo. The Castel is attached to the Vatican City via a raised fortified passage over the streets along an old city wall. The Castel itself was originally the tomb of the Emperor Hadrian. It became a virtually impregnable fortress from the later Roman period onwards. I had the good fortune to arrive during a festival week of Roman culture and history, so the Castel was open late and free of charge. Wandering the tunnels and chambers, I could see the complexity of an assault.

For those who are opera lovers, the final scenes of Puccini's Tosca should come to mind. The Castel had come to have a reputation for torture and political imprisonment at the time of the opera's setting. Those final scenes are set on the ramparts of the Castel and the opera closes with Tosca throwing herself from the battements to her death on the rocks below.

The St. Angelo bridge in front of the Castel was built in 239 A.D. across the river Tiber to lead from the city of Rome to the tomb. It was originally called the Elian Bridge. Apparently in later periods, its statues were added depicting scenes from the Passion of Christ and were adorned with the heads of prisoners executed in the Castel, hung to serve as reminders to the living.