PHOTOS: Discover the history of St. Peter’s Basilica in new Microsoft online AI&enhanced 3D model

The Vatican and Microsoft have created a 3D digital model of St. Peter’s Basilica using the latest in artificial intelligence to offer a new way to experience the nearly 2,000-year history of the tomb of St. Peter. / Credit: Microsoft La Basilica Di San Pietro: AI-Enhanced Experience Vatican City, Nov 13, 2024 / 12:35 pm (CNA). The Vatican and Microsoft have created a 3D digital model of St. Peter’s Basilica using the latest in artificial intelligence to offer a new way to experience the nearly 2,000-year history of the tomb of St. Peter.Accessible worldwide at virtual.basilicasanpietro.va, the free interactive platform allows anyone in the world to “visit” the virtual 3D model of St. Peter’s Basilica, generated using AI from more than 400,000 high-resolution images of the basilica taken by drones using advanced photogrammetry techniques.Microsoft’s Vice Chair and President Brad Smith launched the 3D “digital twin” of the basilica at a press conference this week at the Vatican.“It is literally one of the most technologically advanced and sophisticated projects of its kind that has ever been pursued,” Smith said.The digital platform expands access to people who may never have the opportunity to visit the Vatican but can now experience the beauty, history, and spiritual significance of one of the most important churches in the world.Photo taken on press tour of the “Pétros ení” exhibit at the Vatican, part of the Microsoft La Basilica Di San Pietro: AI-Enhanced Experience, a virtual 3D model of St. Peter’s Basilica generated using AI from more than 400,000 high-resolution images of the basilica taken by drones using advanced photogrammetry techniques. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNAThe model makes it possible to “see this basilica as I think no generation has ever seen it before,” Smith said. The Microsoft president also announced the launch of an educational Minecraft game exploring St. Peter’s Basilica expected in January 2025 and a new immersive in-person exhibition on the terrace of St. Peter’s Basilica for the Catholic Church’s jubilee year.A look back at the ‘old St. Peter’s Basilica’The virtual experience goes beyond just showcasing the baroque splendor of today’s St. Peter’s Basilica, harnessing technology to take viewers back in time to its ancient origins from Nero’s Circus to the ancient St. Peter’s Basilica built by Constantine.Artificial Intelligence gives us a glimpse inside of the old St. Peter’s Basilica as it looked in the 4th century and for the many medieval pilgrims centuries later in the new Vatican exhibit by Microsoft that will open for the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year. pic.twitter.com/ods03Ol8GE— Courtney Mares (@catholicourtney) November 11, 2024 It begins with Caligula’s first-century construction of a circus on Vatican Hill and the placement of an Egyptian obelisk at its center. That obelisk, now in St. Peter’s Square, witnessed centuries of history — from Rome’s bloody persecutions of Christians and the crucifixion of Peter to massive papal Masses with tens of thousands of pilgrims today.“As you will see when you go through the exhibit or if you look at the webpage, it’s fundamentally a story in three chapters,” Smith explained. “The first chapter, in my view, begins exactly where it should — we are here today because St. Peter was here 2,000 years ago.”Digital recreation of the site of St. Peter’s tomb as it appeared in A.D. 67 from the press tour of the “Pétros ení” exhibit, part of the Microsoft La Basilica Di San Pietro: AI-Enhanced Experience. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA“So the first chapter of the story brings to life in new ways … the story of his life, the story that is told in the Gospels.”The second chapter covers the transformations of the site of St. Peter’s tomb over the course of nearly 2,000 years from Peter’s burial and the construction of a church to its place as a center of Christian pilgrimage.Digital recreation of the original St. Peter’s Basilica built by Constantine in the fourth century from the press tour of the “Pétros ení” exhibit, part of the Microsoft La Basilica Di San Pietro: AI-Enhanced Experience. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNAAround A.D. 160, a small funerary monument known as the “Trophy of Gaius” was built over Peter’s grave, becoming a pilgrimage site. When Constantine legalized Christianity in the fourth century, he ordered a massive basilica to be built over this tomb, leveling the necropolis beneath. A digital representation of a mosaic inside the original St. Peter’s Basilica built by Constantine from the press tour of the Pétros ení exhibit, part of the Microsoft La Basilica Di San Pietro: AI-Enhanced Experience. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNAThe virtual tour allows one to imagine what it would have been like to visit the old St. Peter’s Basilica built by Constantine, one of the ancient world’s most important sanctuaries, “a magnificent sepulcher … to which countless people from every part of the Roman Empire come,” Eusebius of Caesarea described