Joseph Bolzern (Kriens 1828, –Rome, 1901), St. Peter's Basilica and the Colonnade in Front

Joseph Bolzern (Kriens 1828, –Rome, 1901) St. Peter's Basilica and the Colonnade in Front Oil on canvas, 53.5 cm x 70.5 cm With frame, 67.5 cm x 85 cm Signed and dated lower left: Bolzern. J. pinx Rome 1889 The undisputed symbol of Rome's history, St. Peter's Square owes its final appearance to a long and carefully considered development. Surrounding one of the thirteen oldest obelisks in the capital, the Egyptian red granite obelisk from the city of Hieropolis, the square honored the Petrine martyrion (memorial) with transcendental beauty since the Constantinian era. However, it was only from the seventeenth century onwards that the project to make St. Peter's the symbolic center of Christianity became concrete, reshaping the ancient layout of the old basilica, the so-called "Paradise" quadriportico connected to it, and the entire plain in front. Pope Julius II entrusted Bramante with the reorganization of the longitudinal facade of the building, imposing a consequent rethinking of the entire square. The memory of the ancient Neronian circus was supplanted by rethinking the square with a centralized focal direction, but Bramante could not complete the project due to his premature death. Of the subsequent projects for the reorganization 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, proposed from time to time to the pope on the throne. After the last remains of the Constantinian basilica were definitively demolished by order of Paul V, Maderno began the extension works, surpassed by the advent of Bernini, who was pressing with innovative proposals regarding the interior and exterior of the basilica. The characteristic elliptical form of the imposing Berninian colonnade still commands the Vatican's collective imagination, suggestively completing the doctrinal metaphor of the square. Commissioned to Bernini by Pope Alexander VII, the colonnade is still composed of 284 columns in four rows. After eleven years of work (1656-1667) and more than forty thousand cubic meters of travertine brought 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 a daily sight for forty years for Joseph Bolzern (Kriens 1828, –Rome, 1901), the author of the work. A painter of Swiss origin born on April 4, 1828, in Kriens (a small town in the Canton of Lucerne), he was a skilled painter and lithographer. His career began in the Canton of Bern, where, after initial training as a lithographer, he became a drawing teacher. His life changed completely when he decided to move to Rome and join the armed corps of the Swiss Guards. Here, for over forty years, he tried to protect the pontifical throne using his free time as a creative moment, creating paintings with views of the Eternal City, such as the one examined here, but also altarpieces for Swiss and German churches. With this painting, the artist seems to want to celebrate not only the magnificence of a place so important to Christianity, but also the work done by the Swiss Guards and their deep connection with the Pope through a simple daily scene. At the bottom center of the painting, one can see a golden carriage followed by a battalion of soldiers on horseback; it is Pope Leo XIII (who ascended the pontifical throne in 1878 until his death in 1903) who is greeted by a small crowd of cheering faithful.