Customer Reviews

Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter's

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Having read and thoroughly enjoyed Basilica, (see my review) I can't let A. McDonald's remarks pass unanswered. As Basilica explains, St. Peter's was constructed with concrete masonry, the same method that ancient Roman architects used to build their monumental edifices. McDonald may be thinking of Portland concrete which dates to the 18th c.
As to the question of the Reformation, A. McDonald seems to have completely missed the nuances in Scotti's writing. The author never says that the excessive cost of building St. Peter's caused the Reformation. Rather, she sees it as the straw that broke the camel's back, prompting Martin Luther to post his theses. In fact, Scotti makes the further point that Luther's theses did not cause the Reformation so much as start the conversation and that the causes of the Reformation were as much political as theological. The historical "what if" that Basilica asks is a fascinating question to think about: What if there had been no excessive Basilica costs and no outrageous clerical behavior in Rome to raise the dander of the young monk?
An equally intriguing question to ponder after reading Basilica: From the perspective of 500 years, was St. Peter's worth the incalculable cost?

On a positive note, this book on the building of St Peters does have some strengths. Scotti describes the dynamics between the patrons (the powerful dynastic families of popes and cardinals sponsoring Roman cultural projects) and the artists - and these are vivid personalities all. She breezily recreates scenes involving popes and painters, such as this typical passage describing the artist Perugino meeting the adult Raphael, formerly his pupil:

"Perugino, eyes moistened, rushed forward and embranced Raphael
like a son. It was an emotional moment for the old painter.
He pinched the boy's cheeks affectionately, marveling at how he had grown."

Although Scotti doesn't seem too bothered to examine original sources to create these scenes (the bibliography is entirely second source material), no matter, they are fun, lightly paced, and charming if this sort of pop historical creativity appeals to you.

Unfortunately Scotti's creative energy also involves fundamental fictions about her subject matter. There are the annoying, small errors like misnaming buildings in the Forum. These are forgivable -- what tourist hasn't got these confused? But then there are howlers that demonstrate she's unfamiliar with the building she's writing about: for instance, she incorrectly asserts that St Peters was built with cast structural concrete. In order to "cast the concrete vaults for the Basilica," as Scotti puts it, Bramante (the 16th century architect building St Peters) would have had to... invent concrete. Concrete as a technology was developed by the ancient Romans, but knowledge of its process vanished with the collapse of their building culture. So Scotti states that Bramante had studied the Romans and rediscovered their methods of using concrete. It's sad that a quick google search could have helped her straighten this out - concrete was rediscovered in the 19th century, not 16th. St. Peters was built with mortared masonry, and contains no concrete nor any cast material approximating it. If she didn't know the basics of how St Peters was technically constructed - and remember this is a book about the construction of a building -- it might have served Scotti better to have skipped all of this, rather than making it up.

Still, even this pales to the inaccuracy of the larger point of the book, the "Scandal" in the subtitle. Scotti attempts to link the construction of the St Peters, in particular its exorbitant expense, with the Reformation itself. In her argument, the Popes were so corrupt, so decayed in moral sensibility, that they constructed St Peters regardless of the burden it would bear on their finances, and the basilica's expense caused outrage throughout the Christian world -- leading to a the Reformation and Protestant split from the Church. She varies her positions on this influence, and obviously recognizes that there were more factors to the Reformation than this building. But in many cases her claim that the building program of St Peters caused the Reformation is clearly stated: had the handling of the basilica's construction been more carefully managed, less divisive, then the Protestant church may not have even happened: "the demands for reform might have been heeded, the rift healed, and the grand enterprise of the century progressed without corrupt indulgences, confused plans, or extravagant expense."

Anyone considering themselves Catholic or Protestant would be offended by the childish reduction of the split between their faith as due to the mere expense of a building -- as if the Popes had listened better to their accountants then the Reformation would never have occurred. Nothing could be further from the case. The Protestant and Catholic Church split on theological issues. The issues that drove Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin to separate from the Catholic church were issues of faith, they were issues of sacrament, of justification to God, of the role of church hierarchy, and of differing views on the nature of salvation itself. To reduce the Reformation as causally due to the extravagant cost of a building is fundamentally misunderstand it, and is fundamentally bad history.

I've been waiting for a popular history dealing with the Renaissance, Reformation, Catholic Reformation, etc. And at first glance this book is it. It's an easy and absorbing read, and endlessly fascinating.

And yet ... this story crumbles under closer inspection. Two examples, among many:

"By the end of Leo's disastrous, eight-year pontificate, all the main players in the first building phase of St. Peter's were dead: Guiliano della Rovere, Donato Bramante, Guiliano da Sangallo, Fra Giovanni Giocondo, Raphael Sanzio, and Agostino Chigi."

Aye. Guiliane della Rovere was Julius II. Of course he was dead at the end of his successor's reign. Scotti covers Bramante, Raphael, and Chigi in decent detail. But da Sangallo is only mentioneed a few times, and Fra Giocondo is only introduced once. It was a shock to realize they were 'major players.' And others, notably Michelangelo, were very much alive.

It seems minor, but over and over Scotti introduces secondary characters as if we know them already when, in fact, she has never mentioneed them before.

Other passages just confused me. The Sack of Rome is particularly confusing - I had to put the book down and look it up on Wikipedia to know what she was talking about.

I can still recommend the book as an excellent read ... but it should have been a classic, and could have been with a touch better editing.

As a lifelong and very active Catholic I was shocked to learn just how little I knew about the history of St. Peters in Rome. For example, I was totally unaware that Constantine erected the first St. Peters in the year 312 A.D. and that the original structure survived for more than 1200 years! And I had certainly never read very much about how the current St. Peters came to be either. "Basilica" tells the remarkable story of the planning and constructon of what many consider to be among the most beautiful and recognizable edifices in the world. It is a tale with more twists and turns, heroes and villains, triumphs and disappointments than one could ever imagine. It is a spellbinding story.

The prime mover and shaker behind the second St. Peters was Pope Julius II. The year was 1505. Julius envisioned a structure that would "embody the greatness of the present and the future." The new St. Peter's would dwarf the constructions of the Caesars and proclaim the power and glory of Christ and His Church. The pope would assemble the most brilliant minds in Rome and would spare no expense to achieve his dream. Among those he recruited for the project were Bramante, Raphael and yes, Michaelangelo. But building the new St. Peters would turn out to be a much more costly and time consuming proposition than anyone could have ever imagined.
"Basilica" tells the amazing story of what would turn out to be a 162 year project. The tale is replete with nasty politics, betrayal, bitter rivalries, greed and a variety of other moral shortcomings. But in the end the good really does outweigh the bad. R.A. Scotti writes of the remarkable engineering and architectural feats that made the new St. Peter's possible. She reminds us all of the genius of artists like Michaelangelo and Raphael. And she chronicles the perseverance of so many of the Holy Fathers who were determined to overcome the numerous obstacles that arose and to see this project through.

Now I suspect that for those who are already well versed in these matters "Basilica" will probably not break a whole lot of new ground. But for the rest of us "Basilica" is a great introduction to so many of these topics. R.A. Scotti succeeded in holding my interest from cover to cover. A great read! Recommended.

As a Renaissance scholar I was disappointed and shocked by the sloppy inaccuracies in Ms. Scotti's text. While she tells an engaging story, she gets many of the fundamentals of history and architecture wrong. The story, indeed, is one worthy of being told. Ms. Scotti, however, does not have the teeth to do it well.

Scott has digested 150+ years into 250+ pages. Considering the outsized ambition of the Basilica project and the stature of the participants, her summarization is a major feat. If you are knowledgeable about this project and/or this time in history, this book is not for you. This book is for general readers (like me) who have little background in this project and its place in time.

With the construction of St. Peter's Basilica as a focus we get a feel for papal history, this time in the City of Rome, how the Reformation morphed into the Counter Reformation, how the renaissance artistic ideals morphed into baroque, and, of course the towering artistic figures of the times. Each of these areas, that affected the construction of the Basilica, has its own massive literature. Scott has done a good job of making this accessible.

I read R.A. Scotti's book on the left of Mona Lisa and found it fascinating. This book, Basilica is proving to be informative and fascinating as well. Her writing is clever, giving lots of information, but not making it like a university text book, which can be so boring. She makes it all very interesting. She obviously has studied her subjects deeply and puts the information forth in a way that's enjoyable to read.

I love history and this is a wonderful way to learn it.

I will read more of her books!

"Basilica" is a densely written, thoroughly researched, and dramatically protrayed account of the building of St. Peter's Church. In this thoughtful and sweeping account, Ms. Scotti covers over 120 years of Church history and the reign of several Popes, discusses the political and other forces which both drove and stalled the construction of what is now one of the most recognizable sites in the world, and examines the fierce competition among the master artists (Bernini, Raphael, Michaelangelo and others) to gain artistic control over the project. Despite its' somewhat overwhelming scope, Ms. Scotti deftly weaves together all of these factors in a compelling narrative.

"Basilica" is in no way a dry account of the construction of St. Peter's. Rather, Ms. Scotti (who I believe is a novelist) has imparted a truly human element to this true-life drama. She discusses at length Michaelangelo's conflicted feelings about the project, his anguish over the abandonment of what he felt was to be his signature work (a planned marble tomb for Pope Julius II), his banishment to the Sistine Chapel and his triumphant completion of what many (including Michaelangelo) thought was an impossible assignment -- the fresco which covers the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to this very day!

Ms. Scotti also clearly discusses the political effects that the proposed construction had on the Church and on Europe as a whole. She correctly identifies the project as one of (if not the seminal) financial "abuses" Martin Luther used as justification for the posting of his famous "Thesies" which, as we all know, led to the Reformation and the creation of the Protestant Churches and pulls no punches when describing the lack of fiscal responsibility exercised by the Medici Popes. Her description of one dinner party where the host casually tossed the dirty gold (real gold!) dishes into the river echoes recent newspaper accounts of some of the galas thrown by certain high-level executives in days before the recent corporate scandals!

She also describes, in vivid detail, the competition between the prominent Italian families of the day to gain the papal seat, the fierce rivalry among now-legendary artists and their patrons, and how the construction of St. Peter's led to the rebuilding of Rome into the city that we know today.

For those "Da Vinci Code" fans out there, it is also worth noting that many of the sites referenced by Dan Brown (such as the Pantheon) and their relation to modern-day St. Peter's are described in vivid detail by Ms. Scotti.

I HIGHLY recommend "Basilica"!!

"Basilica" is a rare find -- an intriguing account of some of the foremost figures in the history of the Church and leaders of the Renaissance. The construction of St. Peter's was an immense undertaking -- the scope of the project was unparalleled, as were the egos of many of those involved. Working from a trove of research, including several first-party accounts, the author spins a delicious tale of intrigue, strife, power-mongering, corruption and waste which, amazingly, culminated in the completion of one of the most acclaimed and recognizable architectural monuments of all time.

Before you read the book, know that even with all the sniping of some of the reviewers, this is an entertaining and thoughtful book. I doubt that Ms. Scotti went out of her way to make any mistakes as to the materials used or how the building was constructed. But nowhere in the book does she ever claim to be an architect or to have studied architecture. It would seem that her main purpose of writing this book was to explain how and why, then in what manner the building was constructed.

Pope Julius II (who thought of himself as the 'new' ceasar) decided to replace Constantine's Basilica of St. Peters with something even more extravagant. Why he would tear down a twelve hundred year old building is beyond question one of the most egotistical destructions up there with Stalin's tearing down of the major churches in Moscow and replacing them with a pool. But Julius was a man after his own heart and no one was going to get in his way.

That the renaissance popes were about as corrupt as could be (one was a bastard, another the grandson of a pope) profligate and a study in all seven of the deadly sins is unassailable. That the connivance of the curia and the priesthood to fleece the multitude to pay for their lavish life styles and to build the Basilica are truisms. How much the cost
of St.Peter's contributed to the selling of indulgences would be speculation but we do know that the sales are one of the major reasons that Luther stated in his '95 Theses'.

Read this book for the story, because a story it is and not as a history or architectural study and you will enjoy it.

Zeb Kantrowitz
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