St. Peter’s Basilica, Lucrezia Borgia; and Leonardo da Vinci

The world’s largest Church and arguably the most consecrated, beautiful and ornate is St. Peter’s Basilica located in Vatican City. It symbolizes the grandeur, the tradition and the following of the most populous faith in the world – Christianity.
On this date, the 18th April, 516 years ago, the corner stone was laid of this opulent, magnificent and majestic seat of faith and devotion. The year was 1506.
Regarded as one of the greatest Renaissance and Baroque buildings, St Peter’s was raised on the site where an old church stood. The function was presided over by the then Pope Julius II. 109 years later another Pope, Paul V oversaw its completion. Today it stands in the shape of a Latin cross with the dome at the crossing over the high altar and the shrine to St Peter the Apostle. It is one of the most visited sites of pilgrimage and the burial place for many Popes.
Its design is the fruit of labour and imagination of many a genius, including Donato Bramante, Raphael; and Michelangelo, who was appointed chief architect in 1546 and served until his death in 1564. Carlo Maderno was responsible for its final Latin Cross design and the building’s facade. Gian Lorenzo Bernini was commissioned to create the Basilica’s monumental piazza.
The interior of the basilica includes many famous works of art such as Michelangelo’s Pietà, Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Baldachin structure over the altar and his tomb to Pope Urban VIII.
Its massive interior measures 15,160 square meters and can hold 60,000 people; while the breath stopping opulence and excessively ornate and elaborate exterior is spread over 21,095 square meters.
Lucrezia- The other Face
Curiously, on the same date i.e.18th of April but a quarter century before the great Basilica’s corner stone was laid, was born one of the most infamous actors in the annals of Christianity.
Lucrezia Borgia, the illegitimate daughter of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, who was to later become Pope Alexander VI, was born today in 1480.
Lucrezia is recorded in history as a ‘femme fatale’, a seductive woman who poisoned people that she could not manipulate, attended orgies and committed incest with her brother Cesare and her father. A charitable view will depict her as a pawn in the wicked power game of her father and brother- the scions of Borgia clan who controlled most of Italy and the Christendom, and whose evil, violent and politically corrupt saga are the stuff the contemporary history and legend was written with. Her not so long life of 39 years that tragically ended 10 days after giving birth to a stillborn girl, is remarkable as much for a fascinating and gripping account of extraordinary events, as for the intense passion and intrigue of their character. Invariably lurid and cruel, her life leaves an unsavoury yet indelible imprint on the chronicle of her times, in the process offering a peep into the morality and propriety prevailing in the realm of religion then.
And Leonardo
Surprisingly, her life was cotemporaneous with Leonardo da Vinci, though 28 years her senior. Leonardo is by common consensus rated as perhaps the greatest and most outstanding product and symbol of a slice of history known as The Great Renaissance. Though, hardly respectful of the prevailing moral fabric of the then religion centric Italy, his creativity and versatility has few parallels in human history. A polymath, who incarnated in his persona a painter, a sculptor, a scientist, an inventor, a thinker and a visionary, are born only once in many millennia.
Such was the destiny of human civilization in Europe in 15th century – brilliant and scintillating, luminous and radiant, its brightness though dimmed from time to time by occasional dark clouds.