THE ETERNAL CITY
Rome is the Eternal City. It has an almost uninterrupted history as an important center of power for more than two thousand years, that’s as close to eternal as it gets.
According to the legend, Rome was founded on the Palatine Hill in 753 BC, by Romulus who also became the first king of Rome. The first traces a settlement were found on the western slope of the Palatine Hill, dating from the 10th century BC.
For more than five centuries Rome was one of the largest and most powerful cities of the western world.
CHARLEMAGNE
Charlegmane was a great medieval king of German blood who was born in 742. He had very little book learning and though he tried in his old age to learn writing, but never quite succeeded. He could speak old Teutonic and literary Latin, and understood Greek.
In 771, at twenty-nine, he became king. Two years later Pope Hadrian II spent an urgent appeal for aid against invasion. Charlemagne took Northern Italy and assumed the role of protector of the Church.
He began a series of fifty-three campaigns designed to enlarge his empire by conquering and Christianizing other areas. When the pagan Saxons burned down a Christian church Charlemagne conquered them giving them a choice between baptism and death (4500 Saxon rebels beheaded in one day). He brought under his rule all the peoples between Poland and the Atlantic, and from the Baltic and the Pyrenees mountains, and nearly all of Italy.
He made military service a condition of owning land and every freeman, at the call to arms, had to report in full armor to their count. There was a sense of public participation in the government. At semiannual assemblies of property owners, the king submitted to them proposed legislation; they considered and returned with suggestions. He legislated for agriculture, industry, finance, education, and religion and morals, as well as for government. He established a system of relief for the poor, taxing nobles and clergy to pay for the costs (then made begging a crime). Appalled by illiteracy and a lack of education among the lower clergy, he called in foreign scholars to restore the schools of France and sent to other part of his kingdom books and teachers.
The empire was divided into counties, each governed in spiritual matters by a bishop or archbishop, and in secular affairs by count. All local administration was subject to emissaries sent by Charlemagne to convey his wishes, to review their actions and judgments, examine accounts, to receive complaints and remedy wrongs, to protect “the Church, the poor, and wards and widows, and the whole people.” He could be ruthless and was especially cruel in his effort to spread Christianity. ‘Charlemagne could lead an army, persuade an assembly, humor the nobility, dominate the clergy, and rule a harem.’ Yet he was a man of great kindness, many charities, warm friendships, and varied loves.
He developed pleurisy, after an illness of seven days he died, in the forty-seventh year of his reign at the age of seventy-two.
St. Peter's Basilica
Emperor Constantine ordered the building of the basilica on Vatican Hill, this was the place where Saint Peter, the chief apostle, was buried in 64 A.D. but it was replaced by a new building church was completed around 349 A.D.
In the15th century, the basilica was falling into ruin was restored and enlarged using plans by Bernardo Rossellino. After Pope Nicolas V died, work was halted until 1506 when pope Julius II laid the first stone of a new basilica which would become the largest in the world. Donato Bramante as the chief architect until Michelangelo succeeded him.
Michelangelo designed the imposing dome. Michelangelo died in 1624, two years before the completion of the dome. The St. Peter's basilica was dedicated by pope Urban VIII in 1626. Ever since, this church has been the center of Christianity, drawing pilgrims from all over the world.
The building itself is truly impressive. The largest church in the world. The basilica's dome is the largest dome in the world measuring more than 450ft.
Some of the most important works in the church are the Pietà by Michelangelo, the papal altar by Bernini, the Throne of St. Peter - also by Bernini - and the Monument to the Stuarts by Canova.
The opulent interior can be visited daily for free although a strict dress code is enforced. You can also visit the dome itself, from there you have a magnificent view of Rome and of Saint Peter's square. St. Peter's is located in Vatican City.
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