“THOU ART PETER – and upon this rock I will build my church.”
1506 – 2006: 500 years of the New St.Peter’s Cathedral in Rome.

April 18th, 1506 saw the beginning of the end for the 1200-year-old St. Peter’s Basilica on the Vatican Hill in Rome. For on this day, under the supervision of chief architect Donato Bramante, the foundation stone was laid for a new St. Peter's Cathedral.

In a sequence of bitter power struggles, shattering defeats and glorious triumphs Bramante, Sangallo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Maderno and Bernini created this world-famous center of the Roman Catholic Church. The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation might well have taken quite a different course without this building. Like a huge precious shell the dome envelops the humble tomb, buried within its depths, is the Apostle Peter, appointed by Jesus to bear responsibility for the Christian faith.