Vatican Museums

The chapel of St. Peter Martyr, at the southwest corner of the Tower built in the Vatican Palaces between 1566 and 1570, is the central of three constructed, one above the other, at the behest of St. Pius V: the stucco and the frescoes that decorate it, inspired by the Stories of the saint of the same name, are the work of Giorgio Vasari and his student Jacopo Zucchi (1570). Inside the chapel, a glass-fronted cabinet to the left of the altar contains the precious relics of the Sancta Sanctorum, the ancient chapel of the Palace of the Popes in the Lateran. Discovered in 1905 inside a wooden box dating from the pontificate of Leo III (795 - 816), they were placed under the altar of the chapel under Nicholas III (1277-80), and remained there, sealed since the beginning of the sixteenth century. In 1936, after being restored, studied and catalogued, the objects were arranged in their current display format under Pius XI.