Chair of Saint Peter
relic at St. Peter's Basilica
The Chair of Saint Peter (Latin: Cathedra Petri), also known as the Throne of Saint Peter, is a relic conserved in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. The relic is a wooden throne that tradition claims belonged to the Apostle Saint Peter, the leader of the Early Christians in Rome and first Pope, and which he used as Bishop of Rome. The relic is enclosed in a sculpted gilt bronze casing designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and constructed between 1647 and 1653. In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI described the chair as "a symbol of the special mission of Peter and his Successors to tend Christ's flock, keeping it united in faith and in charity."
The wooden throne was a gift from Emperor of the Romans Charles the Bald to Pope John VIII in 875. It has been studied many times over the years, most recently between 1968 and 1974. The study concluded that it was not a double, but a single chair, with a covering, and that the oldest parts are from the 6th century. The Chair of Saint Peter is the second altar within the church, with the first one being the one under St. Peter's Baldachin. It stands to remind visitors of the Catholic Church's authority.
“Chair of Saint Peter” enters the record as relic at St. Peter's Basilica. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chair, Saint and Peter can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q733893. Authority coordinates are 41.902, 12.453. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1647, 1653, 2012 and 1968.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chair of Saint Peter” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.