San Pietro in Vincoli (Saint Peter in Chains) is a minor basilica in Rome that houses St. Peter’s chains and Michelangelo’s famous Moses statue. It has some areas of great beauty. All photos can be enlarged to see more detail.
St. Peter's Chains
Also known as the Basilica Eudoxiana, it was first rebuilt on older foundations in 432–440 to house the relic of the chains that bound Saint Peter when he was imprisoned in Jerusalem, the episode called “Liberation of Saint Peter”. The Empress Eudoxia (wife of Emperor Valentinian III), who received them as a gift from her mother, Aelia Eudocia, consort of Valentinian II, presented the chains to Pope Leo I. Aelia Eudocia had received these chains as a gift from Iuvenalis, bishop of Jerusalem.
According to legend, when Leo compared them to the chains of St. Peter’s final imprisonment in the Mamertine Prison, in Rome, the two chains miraculously fused together. The chains are now kept in a reliquary under the main altar in the basilica.” Wiki
Moses by Michelangelo
The famous statue of Moses which has horns because as everyone at the time knew, all Jews had horns! I am only partially joking. Other historians and biblical scholars say that the horns are actually rays of light.
“Giorgio Vasari in the “Life of Michelangelo” wrote: “Michelangelo finished the Moses in marble, a statue of five braccia, unequalled by any modern or ancient work. Seated in a serious attitude, he rests with one arm on the tables, and with the other holds his long glossy beard, the hairs, so difficult to render in sculpture, being so soft and downy that it seems as if the iron chisel must have become a brush. The beautiful face, like that of a saint and mighty prince, seems as one regards it to need the veil to cover it, so splendid and shining does it appear, and so well has the artist presented in the marble the divinity with which God had endowed that holy countenance.” Wiki
Amethyst is lighting a candle in memory of a dear friend of ours who died tragically before we went on this trip.
