St Peter

Ponte Sant’Angelo is a Roman bridge in Rome, completed in 134 AD by Roman Emperor Hadrian, to span the Tiber from the city centre to his newly constructed mausoleum, now the towering Castel Sant’Angelo.

In 1535, Pope Clement VII allocated the toll income of the bridge to erecting the statues of the apostles St Peter (holding a book) by Lorenzetto, and St Paul (holding a broken sword and a book) by Paolo Romano to which subsequently the four evangelists and the patriarchs were added to other statues representing Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses.

When Clement IX had the Ponte Sant’Angelo modernized in 1667, he decided to replace the fourteen stucco angels set up by Raffaello da Montelupo under Paul III with ten marble figures. It was one of the last major projects by Bernini and his assistants.

The picture shows the statue of St Peter with the Castel Sant’Angelo in the background.