Inside the world's smallest nation. Rome, the Holy See

content:
photos:
Vote this travel review

The construction of St. Peter's was begun under Pope Julius II in 1506, and ended in 1612, reigning Pope Paul V. This is actually a reconstruction, since the same site, before the basilica, they rose another dating to the fourth century, built by the Constantine where there was the circus of Nero and where tradition says St. Peter, one of the apostles of Jesus Christ and the first pope of Christianity, was crucified and buried.
The Pontifical Swiss Guard was born in 1506 in Renaissance Rome, was only two interruptions: after the "Sack of Rome, from 1527 to 1548, and under Napoleon, from 1798 to 1814. This small colony in the Swiss city of Rome is now the troop defense and guard of honor of a "universal charge" of religion and at the same time a symbol of Switzerland's international reputation. Prince Renaissance Pope Julius II della Rovere, elected in 1503, pursued in those years tormented the political objective of strengthening the rule of the Church and regain rebel territories. Pervaded by a sense of creative optimism, he supported poets and architects, sculptors and painters (Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael).