Piazza di San Pietro (St. Peter’s Square) and Vatican Obelisk (Obelisco), Rome

Directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica lies a large oval square, Piazza di San Pietro (in Latin, the Forum Sancti Petri), where most of the events, celebrations and religious ceremonies of the Vatican State take place. Continuing it outside the Vatican is the smaller, square Piazza Pius XII with adjacent wide boulevard Via della Conciliazione (Road of the Conciliation) which takes you to Castel Sant'Angelo and, after crossing River Tiber, to Rome. Piazza di San Pietro, designed by architect Marcello Piacentini during the interwar period, around 1930, at Mussolini's request, is in the neoclassical style. It wasn't inaugurated until 1950, when the last urban development in the area was completed.