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Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli

Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli Historical Timeline

Last updated on September 29, 2026

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A church built around a relic in the 430s, rebuilt by the family of the pope whose tomb now dominates it.

Chronology

438–439 — Aelia Eudocia receives the chains that bound Saint Peter in Jerusalem, probably during a pilgrimage, as a gift from Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem, and passes them to her daughter the Empress Eudoxia, who presents them to Pope Leo I. Structural impact: none yet — but the relic is the reason the building exists. What you see today: the chain in its reliquary beneath the main altar.
432–440 — the church is rebuilt on older foundations to house the chains, and is known also as the Basilica Eudoxiana after its imperial patron. Structural impact: the basilica plan is set — a nave and two aisles with three apses. What you see today: the shape of the interior, and the antique Doric columns dividing it.
439 — the basilica is consecrated by Pope Sixtus III. Structural impact: completion. What you see today: a church consecrated in the same decade as Santa Maria Maggiore, by the same pope.
8th–11th century — restoration under Pope Adrian I, and further work in the eleventh century. Structural impact: the early fabric is repaired rather than replaced. What you see today: why a fifth-century plan survived at all.
1471–1503 — Cardinal Della Rovere, nephew of Sixtus IV and from 1503 Pope Julius II, carries out notable rebuilding. Structural impact: the church becomes a della Rovere family church, which is why Julius II's tomb ends up here. What you see today: the reason Michelangelo's Moses is in this building and not in St Peter's.
1475 — the front portico is added, attributed to Baccio Pontelli. Structural impact: a Renaissance loggia is set across the early Christian front. What you see today: the five-arched portico you walk under from the piazza.
1493–1503 — the cloister is built, attributed to Giuliano da Sangallo. Structural impact: the conventual buildings take their Renaissance form. What you see today: the courtyard of what is now La Sapienza's Faculty of Engineering.
1515 — Michelangelo completes the Moses, intended for a free-standing funeral monument of forty-seven statues for Julius II. Structural impact: the monument as executed is a wall tomb, a fraction of the design. What you see today: the statue as the centrepiece of a tomb that was never built as planned.
1604 — Domenichino paints the sacristy fresco of the Liberation of Saint Peter. Structural impact: the sacristy is decorated on the church's founding theme. What you see today: the subject of the relic, painted rather than displayed.
1706 — Giovanni Battista Parodi frescoes the centre of the nave ceiling with the Miracle of the Chains. Structural impact: the eighteenth-century coffered ceiling is completed. What you see today: the painting overhead, showing Pope Alexander healing Saint Balbina's goiter with Peter's chains — an episode the sources describe as pure fable.
1705 — the vault is lowered under the architect Francesco Fontana, with a further renovation in 1875. Structural impact: the interior height is reduced from its early Christian proportion. What you see today: a nave lower than the one the fifth century built.
1894 — a link of the chain is sent to St Peter's Church in Rutland, Vermont. Structural impact: none. What you see today: a relic that is no longer entirely in Rome.

Verified against Wikipedia, September 2026.

External Resources

Sources & verification Covers the sourced claims on this page.

Checked against Wikipedia — Also known as the Basilica Eudoxiana, the church was first rebuilt on older foundations in 432-440 to house the relic of the chains that bound Saint Peter when he was imprisoned in Jerusalem, the episode called the Liberation of Saint Peter; the Empress Eudoxia, wife of Emperor Valentinian III, received them as a gift from her mother Aelia Eudocia and presented them to Pope Leo I, Aelia Eudocia having probably received them during a pilgrimage in 438-439 as a gift from Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem, The chain is kept in a reliquary under the main altar in the basilica, and since 1894 a link of the chain has been housed in St Peter's Church, Rutland, Vermont, while numerous churches to St Peter around the world bear the Ad Vincula suffix relating to the basilica and relic, According to legend, when Pope Leo compared the Jerusalem chain to that of Saint Peter's final imprisonment in the Mamertine Prison in Rome, the two chains miraculously fused together, The basilica, consecrated in 439 by Sixtus III, has undergone several reconstructions including a restoration by Pope Adrian I and further work in the eleventh century; from 1471 to 1503 Cardinal Della Rovere, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV and later elected Pope Julius II, achieved notable rebuilding; the front portico attributed to Baccio Pontelli was added in 1475; the cloister of 1493-1503 has been attributed to Giuliano da Sangallo; the vault was lowered in 1705 under the architect Francesco Fontana; and there was another renovation in 1875, The interior has a nave and two aisles with three apses divided by antique Doric columns, the aisles surmounted by cross-vaults while the nave has an 18th-century coffered ceiling frescoed in the centre by Giovanni Battista Parodi portraying the Miracle of the Chains of 1706, a scene based purely on a fable in which Pope Alexander heals the neck goiter of the mythical Saint Balbina by touching her with the chains that had once bound St Peter, Michelangelo's Moses, completed in 1515, was originally intended as part of a massive 47-statue free-standing funeral monument for Pope Julius II and became the centerpiece of the Pope's funeral monument and tomb in this church of the della Rovere family; Moses is depicted with horns, connoting the radiance of the Lord, due to the similarity in the Hebrew words for beams of light and horns, this kind of iconographic symbolism being common in early sacred art, and for an artist horns are easier to sculpt than rays of light, Other works of art include two canvases of Saint Augustine and St Margaret by Guercino, the monument of Cardinal Girolamo Agucchi designed by Domenichino, who is also the painter of a sacristy fresco depicting the Liberation of St Peter of 1604, a Deposition by Cristoforo Roncalli as the altarpiece of the first chapel on the left, and the tomb of Cardinal Nicholas of Kues who died in 1464, with its relief Cardinal Nicholas before St Peter, by Andrea Bregno (September 2026).

Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli Historical Timeline

Chronology

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