Is the wooden Chair of St. Peter the real thing? Vatican conservationist answers | CBCPNews

Pope Francis venerates the chair of St. Peter, which is placed in front of the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, after the closing Mass of the Synod on Synodality on October 27, 2024. VATICAN MEDIA

By Felipe Salvosa II

October 29, 2024

VATICAN– On Oct. 27, the wooden Chair of St. Peter was put on display at St. Peter’s Basilica and will remain in public view until Dec. 8.

The ancient chair’s display, along with the unveiling of the restored Baldacchino, the huge, gilded canopy made of bronze that marks the tomb of St. Peter and the equally massive monument serving as the chair’s reliquary, marked the end of the month-long assembly of the Synod of Bishops. It also previews the 2025 Jubilee Year set to be opened by Pope Francis on Dec. 24.

A new Vatican publication explains the provenance of the chair.

According to Pietro Zander, head of the necropolis and artistic heritage section of the Fabric of St. Peter, the centuries-old institution charged with the conservation and maintenance of St. Peter’s Basilica, the chair is a “highly symbolic papal seat” that dates to the Carolingian Empire.

“In all probability, the Chair was donated by Charles the Bald to Pope John VIII (872-885); the pope crowned him in the old St. Peter’s Basilica in the year 875,” said Zander in the book, “The Chair of Love: From Peter to Francis in the Jubilee of Hope.”

But engraved ivory panels depicting the Labors of Hercules could have adorned a throne of the Roman emperor Maximian Herculius that was later used by bishops of Rome from the fourth century, Zander said, citing Margherita Guarducci, the Italian archeologist.

Zander noted that a papal bull issued by Benedict IX in 1037 referred to enthronement practices, which required a chair or “cathedra,” and Innocent III sat on it in 1198.

To those familiar, “cathedra” is the root of the word “cathedral,” a church that contains the chair of the bishop, which symbolizes his teaching authority inherited from the apostles.

By the 11th century, people began to request pieces of relics from the wooden chair.

“On the strength of pious devotion,” Zander said, it began to be considered “the seat where St. Peter sat when he preached the Gospel in Antioch and Rome.”

The chair has an external chestnut wood frame dating from the 13th century, with four metal rings used to carry it around the basilica.

It has no armrest, while the backrest has a pediment with three oval-shaped holes whose decorations are gone.

The last public display of the chair was in 1867. Since 1666, it has been kept inside the reliquary that forms the ornate Altar of the Chair which, like the Baldachinno in front, was the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the 17th century artist considered the Michaelangelo of his time.

The Altar of the Chair and the Baldachinno were restored in time for the 2025 Jubilee through funding from the Knights of Columbus.

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