It was the splendor--and the scandal--of the age, the defining event of the high Renaissance. In 1506, the ferociously ambitious Renaissance Pope Julius II tore down the most sacred shrine in Europe--the millennium-old St. Peter's Basilica built by the Emperor Constantine over the apostle's grave--to build a better basilica. Construction of the new St. Peter's spanned two centuries, embroiled 27 popes, and consumed the genius of the greatest artists of the age--Michelangelo, Bramante, Raphael, and Bernini. As the basilica rose, modern Rome rose with it, as glorious as the city of the Caesars. But the cost was unimaginable: the new basilica provoked the Protestant Reformation, dividing the Christian world for all time.--From publisher description.