Basilica di San Pietro

Lonely Planet review

This church was built in the 5th century specially to house the chains that bound St Peter when he was imprisoned in the Carcere Mamertino. Some time after St Peter's death, the chains were sent to Constantinople before returning to Rome as relics. They arrived in two pieces and legend has it that when they were reunited they miraculously joined together. They are now displayed under the altar.

To the right of the altar is Julius' monumental tomb. At the centre of the work is Michelangelo's colossal Moses (with two small horns sticking out of his head and an impressive waist-length beard), flanked by statues of Leah and Rachel that were probably completed by Michelangelo's students. Michelangelo got the idea for the horns from the mistranslation of a biblical passage: where the original said that rays of light issued from Moses' face, the translator wrote 'horns'. Michelangelo was aware of the mistake, but he gave Moses horns anyway. Despite its imposing scale the tomb was never actually finished - Michelangelo had originally envisaged 40 other statues but got sidetracked with the Sistine Chapel. In the end, Pope Julius was buried in St Peter's Basilica and the unfinished sculptures that were to have adorned this tomb are in the Louvre (Paris) and the Galleria dell'Accademia (Florence).