The Chair of St Peter, Bernini's ending to the basilica

Nearly everyone who walks into St Peter’s heads for the baldachin and stops there, as if the basilica ended under the dome. It doesn’t. At the far end, in the apse, Bernini placed the real finale of the route, a gilded bronze throne and, above it, a dove made of light. For me it’s the most theatrical moment in the basilica, and one of the least looked at. Here’s what it is, what it holds and when to see it at its best.

A reliquary shaped like a throne

The Chair of St Peter isn’t a seat. It’s a monument that protects one. Inside the gilded bronze throne is a wooden chair with Carolingian ivory friezes from the 9th century, according to the Fabbrica di San Pietro. Tradition links it to the authority of the Bishop of Rome, and Bernini treated it as a relic, sealing it inside a monumental reliquary.

The patron was Alexander VII, who also gave Bernini the square, and the work took a decade, ending in 1666. The figures explain the effort. The bronzes weigh 74 tonnes and the whole ensemble stands 14.74 metres high. What strikes me most is the contrast between all that weight and how light the thing looks from the nave.

What is Bernini’s Glory?

It’s the top part, and the bit you see from the entrance. A window with the dove of the Holy Spirit, about twenty metres up, over the gilded bronze. When light comes through the glass the whole apse glows. The Glory was restored in 2024, straight after the baldachin, and the cleaning finished in November that year.

The best way to get the idea is from a distance. From the middle of the nave the Chair sits framed between the twisted columns of St Peter’s baldachin, and the two Bernini works read as a single scene. The basilica’s axis starts at the door, passes over Peter’s tomb and ends at the dove. The architects who shaped that axis are covered in St Peter’s Basilica architecture.

22 February, with over a hundred candles

The feast of the Chair of St Peter is on 22 February. On that day, the Fabbrica says, the monument is lit with more than a hundred candles. If you can be flexible about travelling to Rome in late February, which is also low season, I’d pencil in that date. The next one is 22 February 2027.

The rest of the year you see it by the natural light of the window, which is plenty.

Mass in front of the Chair

Here’s a tip hardly anyone uses. The Altar of the Chair has more Masses than most in the basilica. There are four on weekdays, two in the morning and two in the afternoon, and five on feast days, the 10:30 chapter Mass being the grandest. The exact times are in the table above. No ticket is needed, just the basilica’s security check. If you want to look at the work sitting down in silence, rather than standing among groups, going to a Mass is the way, and the basilica’s full timetable is on my page about Mass times at the Vatican.

Do respect the service, though. No flash photos during Mass, which are banned in the basilica anyway, and no wandering round the apse as if it were a gallery.

Why does a chair matter so much?

Because in the Church the cathedra is the bishop’s symbol, the seat from which he teaches, which is where the word cathedral comes from. Rome’s, by tradition, is Peter’s, so Bernini treated it as a relic and placed it at the end of the axis, above even the papal altar. I think it’s a brilliant bit of stagecraft. He doesn’t show you the chair, he shows you what it means, with light, gold and height.

That’s also why the feast on 22 February is no minor date at St Peter’s. It’s the day the monument does, quite literally, what it was designed to do.

Fitting it into your visit

The Chair is inside St Peter’s Basilica, open 07:00 to 20:00 and free. My order would be to arrive early, walk the nave, stop under the dome and carry straight on to the apse. Ten minutes is enough to see it properly. On the way out, the facade and the pope’s balcony round the visit off outside.