 St. Peter’s Square, above, plays a leading role in the much anticipated movie Angels & Demons, starring Tom Hanks.
VATICAN CITY – This holy city is bracing for an onslaught of international visitors the likes of which it has never seen.
Not even conclaves, those most secretive of meetings held to elect a new Pope, have generated this much interest in the Holy See.
What’s prompting this Vatican City frenzy is the soon to be released and much anticipated movie Angels & Demons, the prequel to the hit film The Da Vinci Code, both adaptations of Dan Brown’s gripping novels of the same names. For the record, Angels & Demons actually preceded The Da Vinci Code to book stores and was only considered film worthy by Hollywood after The Da Vinci Code raked in over $200 million at the box office.
In Angels & Demons, the main character, academic sleuth Robert Langdon, to be played once again by Tom Hanks, is called upon to save Vatican City and its untold riches from being blown off the face of the Earth by an ancient scientific cult, The Illuminati, which has some serious issues with church.
In a mad dash across Rome to find the cult’s four “Alters of Science” – to be used as alters of sacrifice for the four cardinals kidnapped by the group’s “Hassasin” – Langdon and a few friends must reach a canister containing a potent but unknown substance called “antimatter” – its destructive force makes even the largest atomic bomb look like a firecracker – while a doomsdayclock ticks down.
Langdon’s chase takes him to several of Rome’s most historic churches, where The Illuminati has promised to leave the cardinals’ dead bodies before blowing up St. Peter’s Basilica and all around it as revenge for what the cult believes was the church’s mistreatment of scientists over the ages.
 The Swiss Guard are called upon to defend
So, hating crowds as I do, I decided to get a head start on Dan Brown’s many fans well before the movie’s release date – May 15 – and headed off to Rome to search out the churches mentioned in the book. Just like Langdon, I only had a few hours in which to locate the churches and study their many riches.
There was no time to waste.
First stop, the amazing Pantheon, a former Catholic church and the oldest domed structure in Rome, where Langdon thinks the Hassassin is holding the cardinals.
A beam of sunlight streaming through the Pantheon’s famous oculus when I arrived highlighted some of the ornate crypts laid out neatly around the simply decorated landmark, which was built in 31 BC to honour all gods and rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian after a fire in 126 AD. In the 17th century, legendary Italian artist Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini – despite creating many priceless works for the Catholic church the book reveals him to be a scientologist and an Illuminati member whose secret landmarks Langdon must find and decode in his search for the cult’s secret lair – had some of the Pantheon’s bronze melted down for use in his famous baldachin above the high alter of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The Pantheon’s crypts contain the remains of some of history’s most famous characters – Victor Emanuelle II, his son Roberto and the great Italian artist, Raphael, who died at the age of 37 from pneumonia. I jump ahead of the storyline at this point – the place where the fourth cardinal is murdered, Bernini’s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers), sits directly across from the Pantheon in the Piazza Navona, so, since I’m here ...
I’m told by a local woman who was soaking up Rome’s midday sun in the piazza that it once served as Rome’s market (circa 15th century). Bernini’s ornate fountain stands as the piazza’s centerpiece, surrounded by other great works from Francesco Borromini, Girolamo Rainaldi and Pietro da Cortona. The square contains two other fountains and an Egyptian obelisk.
This is not the first time the piazza has been used in a film. Scenes from the 1990 remake of the Hollywood classic Coins in a Fountain were shot here and director Mike Nichols used it in his movie adaptation of Joseph Heller’s novel, Catch 22. Angels & Demons’ director Ron Howard used the southern section of the Piazza Navona to shoot scenes for the upcoming movie.
 Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona which is located next to the world famous Pantheon, opposite page, is where a murder victim is found.
It proved an unexpected surprise and even came with a Bernini statue – a cheery baby elephant carrying a small Egyptian obelisk on its back – that the great sculptor erected in 1667.
Resting beside the main alter in the ornate Gothic church - the only one of its kind in Rome – stands a magnificent marble statue, carved by the hands of none other than Michelangelo, called Statua del Redentore (the Rising Christ). In a glass coffin under one of the church’s alters rests the remains of St. Caterina (St. Catherine). Two other crypts in the church contain the bodies of two popes, Leona and Clemence VII. Several cardinals and bishops rest beside the popes, both of whom came from Italy’s famed Medici clan, who counted four popes on their family tree.
It was in the Dominican monastery adjoining Santa Maria that the astronomer Galileo was tried for teaching that the Earth revolved around the sun. He was forced to recant and retire.
Next, I headed across town to the Piazza del Popolo (the People’s Square) home to an opulent church called Santa Maria del Popolo. It’s located in the northeast corner of the great square, which contains part of the original Roman Road. Ironically, the square was once used as a place of public executions, the last one occurring in 1826 – that is until Langdon finds the mutilated body of one of the four cardinals in the church.
Santa Maria del Popolo, first built in 1099 and refurbished many times by several prominent designers, including Bernini, is an excellent example of Italian Renaissance architecture and a storehouse historical riches.
The church’s great dome is decorated with Raphael’s moving mosaic “Creation of the World” and canvases by Caravaggio (“Crucifixion of St. Peter” and “Conversion on the Way to Damascus”) as well Carracci’s “Assumption of the Virgin” hang on the walls. Bernini placed several of his more famous sculptures in the church, including “Daniel and the Lion.”
It’s hard to tear myself away from Santa Maria del Popolo but time was a factor and there was still much ground to cover, including the place Langdon found the second dead cardinal, St. Peter’s Square.
A long line of visitors stood patiently in a searing heat waiting to enter St. Peter’s Basilica, the centerpiece of the great square redesigned by Bernini in 1656. The square is filled with 136 statues, including great works like Bernini’s West Ponente, where in the book the second cardinal is found slain. The square is dominated by 288 columns, 144 pillars and thousands of tourists most days. By the way, Langdon’s love interest in the book enters St. Peter’s Basillica wearing shorts – don’t even try it. Shorts are totally banned.
The West Ponente relief is elliptical, about three feet long and carved with a rudimentary face – a depiction of the West Wind as an angel-like countenance. Bernini drew a powerful breath of air blowing from the angel’s mouth outward, away from Vatican City, another signpost Langdon is supposed to follow to the next victim. From my vantage point, I can see the shutters on the Pope’s apartment, the focal point of much of the book’s drama and intrigue.
The two main statues located in the square are of St. Peter, the first pope, and St. Paul, both executed – St. Paul was beheaded and St. Peter crucified like Christ – on this very spot. St. Peter’s remains now rest below the lavish main alter of the massive church, the biggest in the world.
Obelisks play a starring role in Angels & Demons – Bernini used them as markers for Illuminati members to follow en route to the group’s secret lair – and St. Peter’s Square has probably the most impressive of all, an Egyptian beauty placed in the Holy See by none other than Caligula, the enfant terrible of Roman emperors. In all, there are 15 obelisks scattered about Rome, most hidden behind the locked gates of the city’s elite.
Our long line slowly pushed forward but with so much going on in the great square, I hadn’t noticed we had arrived at the awesome entrance of St. Peter’s Basilica, often called the most beautiful building in the world and one jammed-packed with priceless art created by a Who’s Who of history’s great painters and sculptors.
I rushed to the front of the great church where four twisted black marble columns hold up the golden canopy
covering the main alter, under which, six metres down, St. Peter’s remains rest.
As mentioned in the book, the alter is surrounded by 99 golden lanterns but what Brown does not tell readers is that the lamps are fuelled by olive oil donated each year to the Vatican by selected Italian towns.
St. Peter’s tomb is off limits to everyone – the closest encounter worshippers get is if they line up to touch the feet on a bronze statue of the first pope, which sits off to the right of the main alter. Because so many have touched the statue over the centuries, the feet have been worn down and the once detailed toes have disappeared.
 Santa Maria della Vittoria is the last church I visit. The small basilica located on Via Settembre was started in 1605 and houses one of Bernini’s most beautiful and controversial works, an erotic sculpture called Ecstasy of St. Teresa.
Langdon finds the fourth and final cardinal hanging in the middle of the church, his body engulfed in flames. This is also where Langdon is confronted by the Hassasin. Ironically, the great Santa Maria della Vittoria suffered damage in an 1833 fire and required much restoration. Its façade was first erected between 1624 and 1626 and it contains great works by many noted Italian artists.
However, it’s Bernini’s masterpiece that dominates the church’s Cornaro Chapel. It depicts a moment described by St. Teresa of Avila in her autobiography where she had a vivid vision of an angel piercing her heart with a golden shaft, causing her great joy and pain. The contorted posture and repose Bernini sculpted leaves one with the impression that the encounter was more passionate than painful and visitors are mesmerized by the saint’s voluptuous trance.
There are 935 churches in Rome and I think I passed every one of them on my search for the five places mentioned in Angels & Demons. Suffice to say Angels & Demons is as gripping as anything Dan Brown has written and it has a rock-solid ending.
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