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 enlarge | Author: R. A. Scotti
Publisher: Plume
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $4.15
You Save: $10.85 (72%)
New (8) Used (11) from $4.15
Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 10063
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9
Dewey Decimal Number: 720
ASIN: B0014E92R8
Publication Date: May 29, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A real page turner April 27, 2008
Joseph Duffy (Philly)
This book was more than I had hoped for, and it made a very easy read. I couldn't put it down and hated for it to end. I will buy more books from this author.
 Basilica April 5, 2008
gene spitter (Yountville, Ca.)
I am disappointed in this book. The author's scattershot presentation of a subject that should be fascinating leaves this reader longing for either a scholarly approach or a personal one. This book tries to mix the two.
Why it took more than 150 years to build St Peter's March 17, 2008
M. A Newman (Alexandria, VA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book might better be termed an "epic" as opposed to a mere history, since it is a kind of saga in architecture that is as action packed as any in the history of art. First of all there is the cast of characters: Pope Julius II, Michaelangelo, Agostino Chigi (banker to the pope) Raphael, Bramante, Leo X, Paul III, Sixtus V, Paul V, Urban VIII, and finally Bernini. Any tale that packs in these powerful personalities is bound to frought with conflict and conflict there is. What is perhaps the most interesting thing about this book is just how the idea of what St Peters would become changed over time depending upon a variety of factors, mainly human ones. Scotti is not able to show us just the splender and scandal, but the changes in design that caused St Peter's to be one of the most expensive buildings ever to construct. br / br /The expense associated with the building was met by the sale of indulgences which as most people know led to the Protestant Reformation. It is rare that a building can change history before it is even built, but it happened and Scotti lays it all out for the reader in a very becoming manner. br / br /While this book does not shed any new light on the building of St Peters and many of the events have been recounted elsewhere, I do not think that the entire story has ever been presented in a more entertaining manner. Scotti knows how to tell a story and tell it well. If you are planning a trip to Rome or have been to Rome, this book will be an eye-opener.
The inside story! March 8, 2008
J. Hanna (Houston TX)
This is a chatty, informative and thoroughly researched book about the construction of St. Peter's Basilica. It gives a wonderful insight into the lives of the popes, the artists and the architects of the largest church in the world. I learned a lot and it was a great read.
Read it before you visit St. Peter's October 7, 2007
Charles S. Houser (Binghamton, NY)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I will defer to the judgment of other reviewers who have found fault with some of the "facts" Scotti relates in BASILICA. This is a popular, not an academic, history of the building of St. Peter's in Rome. I found Scotti's depiction of the sequence of events and of the personalities at play to be consistent with what I've read elsewhere. And she does a good job of demonstrating how all actions have a multiplicity of consequences--good and bad. If she's a little guilty of playing a "what if" game (What if the popes had not committed themselves to building the grandest church in Christendom and used the selling of indulgences to help finance it, and what if a certain Augustinian monk had found less combative ways to voice his concern about the shortcomings of his church, and what if New World civilizations hadn't been pillaged and destroyed to provide silver and gold for the church's ornament...), at least she conveys a clear sense that history is a complex and intertwined thing. Also, her descriptions of the popes, artists, and architects who had a hand in bringing about an amazing worship space that took generations to complete are pointed but unelaborated (she does no "The Agony and the Ecstasy"-type of filling in the unknowable details). Everything she asserts about them can likely be supported from letters and diary accounts (even if incorporated via secondary sources). br / br /My regret is that I read this book AFTER visiting the Vatican. I'm sure I would have had a more meaningful visit if I had read Scotti's history beforehand. And as lively as her writing is, most people could easily finish this 269-page book during a 9-hour trans-Atlantic flight. Perhaps Scotti's final sentence sums up one's mixed feelings about a building that cost the world so much: "Gothic cathedrals reach up to heaven. St. Peter's--muscular, sublime, irrevocable--brings heaven to earth."
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