In the front of St. IZeter's church towards the east, in the ancient camp, or valley, where the gentiles performed the Vaticini, and prepared for the triumphal processions, is the piazza of the Vatican basilica, in the form of an amphi theatre, which, for extent, magnificence, the distribution and elegance of the columns, statues, and fountains, astonishes the beholder, and appears to be the ne plus ultra of human art and. genius. This was the work of Pope Alexander VII. from designs by Bernini, about the middle of the 17th century. The colonnades are of the Doric order, consisting of three hundred and twenty large stone columns, distributed into tetrads, and forming a •street in the centre for processions, with walks at the sides for spectators. They are covered, and surrounded with cornices, on which, for greater ornament, are erected a stone balustrade, and one hundred and thirty statues of saints of both sexes, whose relies are preserved in the church, with those of the various founders of the religious orders.
In the centre of this piazza is the celebrated Egyptian obelisk, the only one'of its kind that has wholly escaped the ravages of barbarous hands, and the injuries of time. It is of plain red granite, 113i palms in height, all of a single piece ; or, from the base, including the pedestal and cross, 180 palms, the cross alone being 10 palms. This monument, of ancient but uncertain date, is said to have been one of two obelisks dedicated to the sun in Heliopolis, the On of holy writ, by Nimcorius, called also Pheron, son of Sesostris, king of Egypt, on occasion of his recovering his sight, after a blind ness of ten years; where it remained till the reign of the emperor Caligula, who, according to Pliny, had it removed to Rome, in the third year of his reign, and set up in the Vatican circus. When Constantine the Great destroyed the circus, the obelisk was left standing, and it remained neglected upwards of one thousand two hundred and fifty years, till the pontificate of Sixtus V., who was made pope
in 15S5, by which time it was buried to the top of the base in the accumulated ruins and rubbish. Sixtus ordered it to be cleared to its foundation, and employed the architect Dominico Fontana, who, on the 10th of September, 1586, with the labour of eight hundred men, and one hundred horses, removed it to its present situation, and set it up on two large blocks of granite, brought from Egypt at the same time with itself, and which serve for the pedestal, supported by a base of white marble. On the angles are four lions of metal, appearing to sustain the obelisk, cast from a model of Bresciano. The same pope dedicated it in honour of the true God, and, instead of the large metal ball, that was originally on the top, he placed his own arms, consisting of three mounts and a star, and above them a metal cross ; which last, being injured by lapse of time and the weather, was taken down in 1740, and being repaired, a particle of the wood of the holy cross was inserted into it, and various indulgences have since been granted to those who, in passing by, have saluted it with a Paternoster or an Avemaria. The removal of this obelisk to its present situation, was first contemplated by Pope Nicholas V., who intended to have it sustained upon four colossal statues of the evangelists ; but his death, in 1445, prevented the execution of his design.
On the right of the obelisk is a fountain, made by Paul V. early in the seventeenth century ; and on the left is another, by Clement X., about the year 1671. They are both admi rable works, as well for the copious supplies of water they throw up, as for their basins of the finest Egyptian granite, each cut out of one solid block.
For a view of the dimensions of this church, compared with those of St. Paul's,- London, the reader is referred to page 674 of this volume.