The foot-tall, jewel-encrusted, golden cross, known as the Crux Vaticana, was given to the people of Rome by the Byzantine emperor Justin II in the 6th-century and bears the inscription “With the wood with which Christ conquered man’s enemy, Justin gives his help to Rome and his wife offers the ornamentation.”  

The reliquary is said to contain pieces of the cross on which Jesus was crucified, hence its longstanding reverence by the Catholic church. However, beyond its theological significance, the Crux Vaticana is also historically important as the only reliquary gifted from an emperor and emblematic of the unity between Eastern and Western Christianity as well as the Byzantine emperor’s Christian faith.  

For 1,500 years, it was used in the Vatican’s Christmas and Easter ceremonies, but after the gems and color began to dull due to candle wax and smoke exposure, it was tucked away for safe keeping and conservation. The restoration was paid for an anonymous donor who did not want the price tag released. 

The Basilica di San Pietro in Rome (Basilica of St. Peter) is the largest church in the world.
It covers around 22,000 square metres and its cupola stands 136 metres high. The basilica was first built in the mid 4th century during the pontificate of Silvester I. Pope Julius II later assigned Bramante the task of expanding the church, but this caused a dispute among a group of artists who were divided between a plan in the form of a Greek Cross (Michelangelo, Peruzzi and Bramante) and one in the form of a Latin Cross (Raffaello and Sangallo).

Paul V eventually decided upon the Latin Cross and assigned the work to Carlo Maderno, who finished the Basilica in the early 1600s.

The basilica’s stairs were designed by Bernini as were also St. Peter’s Square and its famous colonnade, and the canopy inside.

Michelangelo designed the cupola for the Basilica of St. Peter but never saw its completion, which was taken over by Fontana and Della Porta.

The façade erected by Carlo Maderno is 115 metres wide and more than 40 metres high, supported by giant columns. In front of the façade are the two grand statues of St. Peter and St. Paul.