Restorers complete work on the canopy covering St. Peter’s main altar ahead of the 2025 Jubilee

Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Restorers have put the finishing touches on the ornate canopy covering the main altar in St. Peter’s Basilica, which has been covered in scaffolding for months during the first renovation of Baroque architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s masterpiece in more than 250 years. During the months-long renovation, workers for the Fabbrica di San Pietro, which maintains the basilica, discovered bits of the baldachin’s history, the sole of a child’s shoe. Engineer Alberto Capitanucci explains that it is linked to the tradition that lasted into the 1950s of using children suspended on rope to clean difficult-to-reach areas. The gleaming gold and copper canopy will be revealed on Oct. 27, when the scaffolding is removed, ahead of the 2025 Jubilee year.