St. Peter’s Basilica

The papal basilica in Vatican City, on the west bank of the Tiber in Rome.

At a glance

Source	Author	Role	In one line
Neither Here Nor There	Bill Bryson	subject	The one building that brings Bryson close to his knees.

Neither Here Nor There — Bill Bryson (1991)

Source: Readwise highlight

It is the only building I have ever entered where I have actually felt like sinking to my knees, clasping my hands heavenward, and crying, “Take me home, Lord.”

• Role: subject
• In the book: Chapter 13. Bryson walks down the central aisle “agog at the scale of the place” (730 feet long, 438 feet to the top of the dome) and recalls Mark Twain’s point in The Innocents Abroad that everything is built to such a scale you have to keep reminding yourself how big it is. He then visits the Sistine Chapel and the museums, which are impressive but “largely wasted on me after the spacious grandeur of St. Peter’s”.
• Why it matters: It’s the emotional peak of the Rome chapter, which is otherwise about traffic, parking and neglect. “No structure on earth would ever look the same to me again.”