Vatican courtyards

Leaving the so-called Atrio delle Corazze on the left and crossing the Atrio dei Quattro Cancelli, you come to the Cortile della Pigna, part of the sixteenth-century area of ??the Belvedere. The latter was designed in 1506 by the architect Donato Bramante, on the orders of Julius II, to connect the Palazzetto di Innocenzo VIII (1484-1492) with the Sistine Chapel, built by Sixtus IV (1471-1484).

The courtyard at the time was divided into three areas with different heights, connected to each other by elegant ramps, and was closed laterally by buildings marked by pilasters surmounted by large arches.

The pavement and the lateral arms were then slightly inclined towards the Sistine Chapel, so as to make the courtyard appear even larger than reality to those who looked out from the papal apartments. A large niche was planned at the north end to conclude the perspective escape: it was built, as it is currently seen in the so-called Cortile della Pigna, in 1565 by the architect Pirro Ligorio, taking the dome of the Pantheon as a model.

The evocative prints of the first half of the sixteenth century can provide an idea of ??the festivals and carousels that took place here. At the end of 1500 the Cortile del Belvedere was divided into two parts by the construction of a transverse arm of the Library of Sixtus V (1585-1590). Then in 1822 a second transversal body of the building was built called "Braccio Nuovo", intended to contain a collection of statues.

Today there are therefore three open spaces: the Cortile della Pigna, the Cortile della Biblioteca and the Cortile del Belvedere.

The Cortile della Pigna is so named after a colossal bronze pine cone almost 4 meters high which in classical times was located in Rome near the Pantheon, from which the "Pigna district" took its name; in the Middle Ages it was probably taken to the atrium of the ancient St. Peter's Basilica, from where it was moved here in 1608. On the sides are two bronze peacocks, copies of originals from the 2nd century AD, preserved in the Braccio Nuovo.