According to the legend, Our Lord appeared to Pope St. Sylvester I (314-337), in the year 320, during the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great and requested the holy Pontiff to build a chruch over the tomb of the great Apostle of the Gentiles. It was to contain 270 niches in the nave walls to accommodate the portraits of all the Popes from the first Peter to the last Peter. The portrait of St. Sylvester, and of his successdor Marcus, and their thirty-three predecessors, were all painted apparently by the same artist. The portraits of the succeeding Popes were generally added, one by one, by different hands, probably right after their deaths, on orders of their successors. The magnificent Bascilica was destroyed by fire in 1823, during the reign of Pius VII. His successdor, Leo XII (1823-1829), ordered it rebuilt. It was complete during the reign of Pius IX (1846-1878), who ordered all of the portraits of the popes restored to their proper nichees before he consecrated the Basilica. They were faithfully copied in imperishable mossics from copperplates executed by an artist around 1775 for a firm who manufactured them in various sizes for tourists. Under each medallion of the Pontiffs in the restored bascilica is an engraved plate with the number and name of the successor of Peter and the length of the reign. Irrefutable proof testifying to the unbroken line of the first occupant of Peter’s Chair to the last.
It is a Beautiful Cathedral:http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/…
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