Saint Peter's: The Story of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome

by James Lees-Milne

The history of the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome linked with the people who were concerned with the building. It covers nineteen hundred years from the martyrdom of Saint Peter to present.

Genres: History, Art

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

James Lees-Milne (1908-1997) was an English writer and expert on country houses.

Biography
He was a noted biographer and historian, and is also considered one of the twentieth century's great diarists. He came from a family of landed gentry and grew up in Worcestershire. He attended Lockers Park Prep School, Eton and Oxford University. In 1936 he was appointed secretary of the Country House Committee of the National Trust, and he held that position until 1950 apart from a period of military service from 1939-1941. He was instrumental in the first large scale transfer of country houses from private ownership to the Trust. After resigning his full-time position in 1950 he continued his connection with the National Trust as a part time architectural consultant.

He resided on the Badminton Estate in Gloucestershire for most of his later years while working in William Thomas Beckford's library at Lansdown Crescent at Bath. He was a friend of many of the most prominent British intellectual and social figures of his day, including Nancy Mitford, Harold Nicolson (about whom he wrote a two-volume biography), and Cyril Connolly. He married Alvilde Chaplin, formerly Bridges, a prominent gardening and landscape expert, in 1951.

From 1947 Lees-Milne published a series of architectural works aimed primarily at the general reader. He was also a diarist, and his diaries were published in many volumes and were well received, in later years attracting a cult following. His other works included several biographies and an autobiographical novel.

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book as a teenager in the 1970s and years later as an adult. I thought it was a marvellously readable mixture of history, art, architecture and the Catholic Church. It is also fascinating to see that when published in 1967 it carried a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur to assure all good Catholics that this was a book they could safely buy and read. It was only a few years before the awarding of the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur ceased - it had ceased being a useful marketing tool for US publishers. Within twenty years no respectable author would have such a blatant sign of approval attached to their least it suggested they had compromised their intellectual freedom.

But I doubt Lees-Milne compromised - but in any case it is the photographs which make this book a real joy. Lavish is the word I would use.

[Sam Schulman · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a lover of the diaries of this wonderful man, who spent 20 years traveling in rattletrap cars to decaying country houses owned by even more rapidly decaying owners, in the interest of the National Trust, I wondered if his "public" writing was as great and effortless as his private writing. I started with his book on St. Peter's, a building which I love and thought I knew. Lees-Milne tells the whole history of Rome, of the city of Rome, of the Church, of the middle ages and Renaissance, in this 1966 book. It's full of masterful but understated art history, architectural history, the history of the papacy and human moments wonderfully chosen - the testimony of the English visitors of 1344, who warn that if one becomes separated from one's companinion in this, the biggest building in the world, one must seek all day for him, because of the size of the space, and because of the confusion of the crowds running back and forth between the innumerable shrines and altars, prostrating themselves and getting indulgences. Or the story of the lady who got carried away with her desire to worship the corpse of St. Francis Xavier and bit off its big toe, which she carried in her mouth to her carriage. I am going to read until the impulse to return to Rome becomes overwhelming.
In its scope and modesty of tone, and grandeur of ambition, St. Peter's is reminiscent of Okrent's book on Rockefeller Center, only Okrent did not seek - whether from laziness or fear of rejection we will never know - the Imprimatur and the Nihil Obstat of his archbishop and Censor assuring his readers that his book is free of doctrinal and moral error, as Lees-Milnes's is.
However all should read the first three volumes of Lees-Milnes' diaries, covering the war and the very cold, coal-less post war years (hence "Caves of Ice").

[Joseph Pearce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good look at the history, architecture and art of St. Peters along with the artists, popes and others involved with this great church up until it's publication in 1967.