Saint Peter's, Rome, with Bernini's Colonnade and a procession in carriages

The present view depicts Saint Peter's seen from the western end of the Piazza Pio III, looking through the Piazza Obliqua framed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's greatest architectural achievement, the Colonnade. In the middle of the square stands the Vatican Obelisk, which had been moved to its present location by Sixtus V from what was believed to be the site of the ancient circus of Caligula and Nero. On either side are two fountains, one of which had been designed by Bernini to mirror an existing fountain designed earlier by Maderno and which he had had to move to accomodate his design for the piazza.

Interestingly, unlike almost every other depiction of the square from this period, the artist of the present composition has painted the actual paving design whose radial spokes issue from the obelisk like the sun's rays and stress the single central focus of Bernini's piazza, the obelisk itself.