Baldacchino San Pietro is the Italian name for St. Peter's Baldachin, a large Baroque bronze baldachin, technically a ciborium or baldachin, above the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. The canopy was designed by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini and was intended to monumentally mark the site of St. Peter's tomb. Under the canopy is the high altar of the basilica. The work started in 1623 and ended in 1634.
The baldachin is a visual focal point in the basilica; It is itself a very large structure, providing a visual mediation between the enormous scale of the building and the human scale of the people conducting the religious ceremonies at the papal altar under the canopy. The canopy was inspired by the ancient marble columns that surrounded Peter's tomb in the ancient basilica, which were thought to have come from Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. Eight of the original twelve columns can now be seen in pairs halfway up the piers on either side of the canopy. The canopy is decorated with statues of angels, bees, laurel wreaths and the papal weapons of Pope Urban VIII, who commissioned the work.