In the 1960s, when first I rounded the bend into the sweeping colonnade that leads to the Basilica of St. Peter’s, I was of course amazed at the site’s power and its monumentality: Here lies The Rock.

I went there often, partly because a friend was studying a statue inside for her doctoral thesis in art history. I accompanied her around the church as she analyzed folds of marble, scribbling notes.

The only sight that truly impressed me then was the Pietà, the great creation of the young Michelangelo. It has, in my opinion, the most superb face of the Virgin in any medium. Back then visitors could walk right up to the sculpture and touch it. But, of course, a deranged man took a hammer to this majesty in 1972 and so the protective screen had to be erected.

But now, four decades since I first laid eyes on St. Peter’s, I see the church as someone close to me. Admittedly, it’s an odd response to a structure so imposing. I love to sit in the piazza at twilight just as the tiny bell to the right of the piazza, near the St. Anne’s gate, is ringing to tell employees that they can go home.

Pilgrims who have stayed in the basilica until the last minute are coming down the stairs as the great bell above tolls the hour. I usually sit at the foot of a column at the far end, where I can see the sky around the dome splashed with pinks that turn to fuchsias and blues. Sunlight seems to dart through like slender lightning bolts.

As the lights come on to illuminate the façade, they also turn the fountains into water sculptures. Children run around them, chasing pigeons or just enjoying the splashing lights. By the time the sky has darkened and tiny stars appear, I know I must leave. It’s especially hard when it’s my last night in Rome. Like leaving a loved one to cross the ocean.

That feeling will be particularly palpable for those departing soon after June 29, solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles.

One of my most joyful experiences at St. Peter’s — which is celebrating, all this year, the 500th anniversary of the start of its construction — took place last spring when I happened to be in Rome the day Pope Benedict was elected.

Only in Rome

Scheduled to leave the next day, I thought I would never hear “Habemus papam,” but, back in my room to change for lunch, I saw the television coverage change. Was the smoke black or white? The bell was supposed to have rung if it was white, they argued, until finally there was no doubt and I ran across the bridge, then down to the via della Conciliazione, as all the bells of Rome pealed madly. Not many of us were there yet, and I was able to enter the piazza itself in time to hear the stirring words and be greeted by the new Pope’s outstretched arms.

I’ve often felt blessed, but that time was truly enchanting. It was supposed to rain, yet it held off as the sky above the dome was brilliant in streaks of light. In all my years living in Rome, and visiting from the States, I had never seen it look like that before.

To this day, I have never walked around the inside of the dome, looking down on the church below. (I may never.) The English writer F. Marion Crawford ventured up there once around 1900. “Hanging in midair, looking down to the church below with nothing under one’s feet,” he wrote, “one sees the church projected in perspective within a huge circle … as though upside down and inside out.”

Back on the ground, he observed the Pietà. “Michelangelo was a man of the strongest dramatic instinct even in early youth,” he wrote, “and when he laid his hand to the Pietà, he was in deep sympathy with the supreme drama of man’s history. He found in the stone, once and for all time, the grief of the human mother for her son, not comforted by the foreknowledge of resurrection, not lightened by the prescience of near glory. He discovered by one effort, the divinity of death’s rest after torture, and taught the eye to see that the dissolution of the dying body is the birth of the soul.”

Hosted by Saints

I have so many memories here.

One blessed evening I found myself at St. Peter’s when a group of pilgrims had come to celebrate Our Lady of Lourdes. I was given a candle when I joined a group, not knowing who these folks were, and soon all of St. Peter’s darkened. Thousands of lights flickered in undulating unison as Pope John Paul II led the prayers.

More recently, I spent some time looking at a statue that seemed to offer the pain and love that one woman felt as Christ passed by on his way to Calvary. St. Veronica, beyond the papal altar on the left, shows, in Baroque passion, her painful inability to do more than offer her veil to wipe her Lord’s face.

After spending much time absorbing the purity of the tragedy that the artist, Mocchi, had conveyed — the saint’s swirling robes, her agony etched in stone — I realized that this was the statue my friend had decided on for her dissertation all those years ago. Dumbstruck by its depth and beauty, I recalled how it once struck me as “just another statue.”

I’ve since been amazed to see how much I missed when visiting the crypts where so many popes are buried, the treasury filled with reliquaries of the saints and papal robes, the gentle garden where the view of the dome is more similar to the one Michelangelo wanted (closer to the Greek cross design).

The private sanctuary where one can pray in silence and without flashbulbs is a wonderful place to begin and end a visit to the interior. Sometimes it seems the world is at prayer is that room.

Today the crowds come in greater numbers and see a brilliantly restored church inside and out. Meanwhile the line to the tomb of John Paul winds back to the beginning of the piazza.

And, at night, every night, the spirit still comes out from the past — disciples and martyrs, pilgrims and teachers — 20 centuries’ worth of souls who love the Lord and have been thrilled to worship here near the blessed rock of Christendom. All of us, under the watchful eyes of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles.

Barbara Coeyman Hults

is based in New York City.

ROME TRAVEL TIPS

Stores across from St. Peter’s offer myriad religious objects and books. But I prefer the less-visible shops in back of the Pantheon on Piazza Minerva, called Gaudenzi. The Vatican museum store offers good prints of their paintings and other nice gifts and mementos. T-shirts abound.

The Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere has a tiny gift shop where I’ve often found just the right keepsake for someone back home.

To sample fresh food and cheese, stop at the fascinating Campo dei Fiori market, not far from the Pantheon, mornings except Sunday (when the market is in session around the statue of Giordano Bruno).

Check local churches and newspapers for sites and performance schedules of concerts. Il Messaggero newspaper is a reliable source for local goings-on.

Unfortunately, seasoned thieves and sly pickpockets are attracted to pilgrims as well as tourists throughout the city. Use a money belt or some kind of interior pocket for your cash and valuables.

— Barbara Coeyman Hults