At the bottom of the apse of St. Peter's Basilica, far above the head of anyone entering, a bronze throne appears to float in the air, supported by four monumental figures and crowned by a window of light. It is the Chair of St. Peter (Cathedra Petri), by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and it is also the highest chair that Christian tradition recognizes for a man.
A throne that guards another throne
What can be seen from the nave is the work of Bernini: a gilded bronze envelope, sculpted with clouds, rays of light and angels, erected on the central axis of the basilica, exactly behind the papal altar. But what gives meaning to all this is hidden inside this envelope: a wooden chair, much older and simpler, which tradition venerates as a relic linked to the episcopal chair of St. Peter in Rome. Bernini did not create a throne; he built a monumental reliquary to house another, invisible to the naked eye.
Four doctors sustaining a mystery
The bronze is held in the air by four large figures, representing Doctors of the Church from the East and West, as if the authority it contains required, at the same time, the strength of human arms and the lightness of something that no longer belongs entirely to the earth. Above it all, a dove-shaped stained glass window floods the scene with golden light, the image of the Holy Spirit hovering over the seat of Peter's successor.
The highest chair in Christendom
That is why this monument is read, in tradition, as the highest chair in Christendom: not because of the size of the bronze, but because of what it means, the symbolic place from where the Pope teaches and governs the entire Church. It is this same chair, in the Christian imagination, that the legend of Gregorius evokes when it elevates him, from the absolute bottom of a rock in the sea, to the highest position a man can occupy: not in spite of guilt, but through it.
Few monuments, like this one, concentrate so much light, so much symbolic weight and so much architecture in the service of a single idea: that the highest place in Christianity can belong to any man, as long as he accepts to carry, first, the weight of his own history.
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What is Bernini's Chair of St. Peter?
It is a gilded bronze monument that Bernini built in the apse of St. Peter's Basilica, in the Vatican, in the form of a monumental throne supported in the air by figures of four great Doctors of the Church, with a stained glass window representing the dove of the Holy Spirit above.
What's inside Bernini's Chair?
Inside the bronze casing, Bernini kept an ancient wooden chair, venerated by tradition as a relic linked to the episcopal chair of St. Peter in Rome. It is this ancient chair, and not the visible bronze, that is the devotional core of the monument.
Why is the Chair of St. Peter called the highest chair in Christendom?
Because it represents, in stone, bronze and light, the symbolic seat of Peter's successor: the place from where the pope teaches and governs the Church. Built in the apse, at the most solemn point of Catholicism's largest basilica, it is the most visible image of the highest position that Christian tradition recognizes for a man.
Continue: St. Peter's Basilica: what to see · Who was Bernini? · The Holy Sinner, by Thomas Mann: summary and analysis · Mark Antony's speech
Source class: O Eleito, de Thomas Mann