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Joseph BolzernView of St. Peter's Basilica Oil painting on canvas by Joseph Bolzern1889
1889
About the Item
Joseph Bolzern (1828 -1901)
St. Peter's Basilica and the colonnade in front of it
Oil on canvas, 53.5 × 70.5 cm
with frame, 67.5 x 85 cm
Signed and dated at lower left:
Bolzern. J. pinx Rome 1889
An undisputed symbol of Rome's history, St. Peter's Square owes its final layout to a long and thoughtful gestation. Surrounding one of the thirteen oldest obelisks in the capital, the Egyptian one made of red granite from the city of Hieropolis, the square paid homage to the Petrine martyrion (memory) with transcendental beauty since the Constantinopolitan era. It was not until the seventeenth century, however, that the plan to make St. Peter's the symbolic center of Christianity took shape, remodeling the ancient layout of the ancient basilica, the so-called "Paradise" quadriporticus connected to it and the entire plain in front of it. Pope Julius II entrusted Bramante with the rearrangement of the longitudinal elevation of the body of the building, imposing a consequent rethinking of the entire square. The memory of the ancient Neronian circus was supplanted through the rethinking of the centralized focal-direction plaza, but Bramante could not complete the undertaking due to his untimely death. Of the subsequent plans for the rearrangement of the basilica, to which Michelangelo, Fra' Giocondo (1433-1515), Giuliano da Sangallo (1445-1516), Raphael (1483-1520) and Antonio da Sangallo (1485-1546) contributed, models and drawings remain from time to time proposed to the pope in the chair. Having finally demolished the last remnants of the Constantinopolitan basilica at the behest of Paul V, Maderno began extension work, which was outclassed by the advent of Bernini, pressing forward with innovative propositions concerning the interior and exterior of the basilica. The characteristic elliptical shape of Bernini's imposing colonnade still commands the Vatican's collective imagination, suggestively completing the square's doctrinaire metaphor. Commissioned to Bernini by Pope Alexander VII, the colonnade still consists of 284 columns in four rows. After eleven years of work (1656-1667) and more than forty thousand cubic meters of travertine arrived from Tivoli by land or dragged along the banks of the Tiber by horses, the square finally shone with renewed splendor.
Reproduced in minute detail, St. Peter's Basilica and its colonnade were for a good forty years a daily vision for Jospeh Bolzern (Kriens 1828,-Rome, 1901), author of the work. Swiss-born painter born April 4, 1828, in Kriens (a small town in the Canton of Lucerne) was a skilled painter and lithographer. His career began in Canton Bern where, after initial training as a lithographer, he became a drawing master. His life completely changes when he decides to move to Rome and join the armed corps of the Swiss Guards. Here for more than forty years he tried to protect the papal throne by using his free time as a creative moment, producing paintings with glimpses of the Eternal City, such as the one examined here, but also altarpieces for Swiss and German churches.
The artist with this painting seems to want to celebrate not only the grandeur of such an important place for Christianity, but also the work done by the Swiss Guards and their deep connection with the pope through a simple everyday scene. Indeed, at the bottom center of the painting one can make out a gilded car with a battalion of soldiers on horseback in tow; this is Pope Leo XIII (who ascended the papal throne in 1878 until his death in 1903) being greeted by a small crowd of jubilant believers.
- Creator:Joseph Bolzern (1828 - 1901, Swiss)
- Creation Year:1889
- Dimensions:Height: 26.78 in (68 cm)Width: 33.47 in (85 cm)
- Medium:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Milan, IT
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2639213034302
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