San Pietro in Vincoli

Church · Rione Monti (Piazza di San Pietro in Vincoli)Rome,Italy

A Rome church built in the 430s to hold the chains said to be Peter's, and holding Michelangelo's Moses as well.

San Pietro in Vincoli holds two things worth the climb up the hill, and they have nothing to do with each other. In the right transept stands Michelangelo's Moses, the feet drawing back, the knee turning outward, the right hand caught in the beard, the whole body on the point of standing up without having moved. Under the high altar, in a bronze and glass case, lie two iron chains that tradition says held Peter in prison, joined into one length, dark and much thinner than you expect. The church was built for the chains in the 430s. Relics were Rome's working currency for a thousand years: they brought pilgrims, pilgrims brought money, and money built churches, and this one has a whole basilica standing over it. The Moses was carved for the tomb of Julius II, contracted in 1505 as a free-standing monument in St Peter's carrying more than forty figures. The project shrank for four decades, and what was finally assembled here in 1545 is a wall monument in a side church. Julius is not buried in it.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Come in the first hour after opening — the coach groups walk up from the Colosseum through the late morning, and the midday closure here runs to about two and a half hours.
Carry a one-euro coin for the light box beside the tomb — unlit, Moses is a grey mass in a dark transept, and the lighting changes the surface of the marble completely.
Take Via Eudossiana rather than the Borgia stair — the Borgia stair is the covered staircase up from Via Cavour, and it is short but steep, with no level alternative on that side.

Things to do

1
Look at Moses from the feet upward
Stand directly in front of him while the statue is lit. Start at the feet, which are drawing back, then the knee turning outward, then the arm holding the tablets, then the right hand caught in the beard. By the time you reach the face, you can see that the whole body is on the point of standing up, without having moved yet.
2
Go down to the chains below the altar
Go down the few steps in front of the high altar. The two chains lie in a bronze and glass case, joined into one length, dark and much thinner than you expect. This is the object the whole building was raised to house, and almost nobody in the church is looking at it.
3
Look up the nave at the columns
Twenty ancient columns of pale Greek marble run down both sides, taken from older Roman buildings when the church was built in the fifth century. Walk along the aisle and compare their carved tops: they were cut for other buildings, so the pattern changes from one column to the next.