Saint Peter's baldachin (Italian:
baldacchino) is a large Baroque sculpted bronze canopy, technically called a
ciborium or baldachin, over the high altar of Saint Peter's Basilica in Vatican
City, Rome, which is at the centre of the crossing and directly under the dome.
Designed by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, it was intended to mark,
in a monumental way, the place of Saint Peter's tomb underneath. Under its
canopy is the High Altar of the basilica. Commissioned by Pope Urban VIII, the
work began in 1623 and ended in 1634. The baldachin acts as a visual focus
within the basilica; it itself is a very large structure and forms a visual
mediation between the enormous scale of the building and the human scale of the
people officiating at the religious ceremonies at the papal altar beneath its canopy
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