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Taken more than a mile away on the Ponte Sant'Angelo, this photograph illustrates how Michelangelo's dome of St. Peter's dominates the Borgo and the right bank of the Tiber. Begun in 1546 as Michelangelo took over as capomaestro of St. Peter's, only the drum of the dome was finished by the master's death in 1564. It capped nearly a century of re-construction and renovation of Constantine's original basilica, built over the tomb of St. Peter in 312 AD. Construction continued on through the beginning of the 17th century when, in 1612, Carlo Maderno was commissioned to extend the nave of the church and create a monumental facade. Though neither a cathedral, nor the mother church of the Catholic faith (see St. Giovanni in Laterano), St. Peter's is perhaps the most imposing church of Christendom.
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