. ____ means canopy. One is over the high altar of St. Peter’s.

The sculpted bronze Baroque canopy that stands over the
high altar of St. Peter is called a baldachinno, or a
ciborium. It is a architectural pavilion. Designed by the famous
Italian sculptor Gion Lorenzo Bernini it was intended to mark in a superb way the tomb
of St. Peter which lies underneath the high altar on floor level.  Situated
approximately in the middle of the interior of St. Peter's Basiilica in Rome, Italy, the
seat of the Pope, this baldachinno is meant to establish the dimensions of the enormous
scale of the basilica contrasted to the human
scale.

Bernini's baldachinno combines sculpture with
architecture in a most impresssive manner as the four columns are sixty feet high that
rest upon a high marble plinth.  At the tops of these columns are sculpted angels that
are four times life size.  Supported is a gilded cross on a sphere, symbolic of the
world that has been redeemed by Christianity.  Indeed, Bernini's work is a magnificent
example of Baroque architecture and sculpture both.