Tea at Trianon: Envisioning Old St. Peter's Basilica

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, December 27, 2025

Envisioning Old St. Peter's Basilica

I have just read Scotti's Basilica about the construction of the current St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and it made me curious about what the old St. Peter's looked like. From Liturgical Arts Journal:

Old St. Peter's was a classic Roman basilica from all accounts, and like any basilica that had survived for over a millennium, we have to bear in mind that there were changes to the interior decoration and arrangement as the centuries slipped past. In that regard, our considerations of what "Old St. Peter's" was like has to be a layered considerations of its history, just as does history generally in its own right. The general layout of the interior basilica was classically 'Roman' and one need only bring to mind the basilica of St. Paul's to picture it. The following diagram shows the layout of old St. Peter's as it stood in the middle ageas:

Anyone who has visited San Paolo will immediately recognize the similarities with the double row of columns lining the nave leading up toward the high altar. While not all of these features shown here were to be found in the Constantinian era, the bones of the basilica are indeed Constantinian in its basic basilica form. (Read more.)

From Church Pop:

The current St. Peter’s Basilica is one of the most beautiful churches in the whole world. With parts of it designed by such greats as Michelangelo and Bernini, it was was built over a 120 year period in the 16th and 17th centuries and remains the largest church in the world.

But it was not the first St. Peter’s Basilica.
Before the current St. Peter’s Basilica there was another church in roughly the same location with the same name, now often referred to as the Old St. Peter’s Basilica.
The Old St. Peter’s Basilica was truly a wonder and treasure of the church. Commissioned by Emperor Constantine in the early 4th century, it served the church for nearly 1200 years. Its altar was built atop what was believed to be the tomb of St. Peter, and its footprint overlapped with the old Circus of Nero – the site of St. Peter’s martyrdom. (Read more.)