This image was shot from about 2/3 of the way down the nave of St.Peters.
It shows the great bronze "baldechino"which was designed, built and completed in 1634 by Gianlorenzo Bernini
in the crossing of St. Peters.

The baldechino is a symbolic canopy over the grave of St. Peter, who is buried several meters below the main level of the church.
The Barberini Pope Urban VIII commissioned Bernini to consruct the baldachino in 1624,
(Bernini's first of many commissions in the basilica), initiating his service as "chief architect" of St Peters until his death in 1680.

The bronze used for the baldechino was "harvested" from beneath the roof covering the porch of the Pantheon in Rome, eliciting the saying:
"what the Barbarians did not steal, the Barberini did !"