St Peter's Basilica in the context of "Italian Renaissance architecture"

The Santiago de Compostela Archcathedral Basilica (Spanish and Galician: Catedral Basílica de Santiago de Compostela) is part of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela and is an integral component of the Santiago de Compostela World Heritage Site in Galicia, Spain. The cathedral is the reputed burial place of Saint James the Great, one of the apostles of Jesus Christ. It is also among the remaining churches in the world built over the tomb of an apostle, the other ones being St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, St Thomas Cathedral Basilica in Chennai, India, and Basilica of St. John in İzmir, Turkey.

The archcathedral basilica has historically been a place of Christian pilgrimage on the Way of St James since the Early Middle Ages and marks the traditional end of the pilgrimage route. The building is a Romanesque structure, with later Gothic and Baroque additions.

Antonio del Pollaiuolo (UK: /ˌpɒlaɪˈwoʊloʊ/ POL-eye-WOH-loh, US: /ˌpoʊl-/ POHL-, Italian: [anˈtɔːnjo del pollaˈjwɔːlo]; 17 January 1429/1433 – 4 February 1498), also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo or Antonio Pollaiuolo (also spelled Pollaiolo), was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, engraver, and goldsmith, who made important works in all these media, as well as designing works in others, for example vestments, metal embroidery being a medium he worked in at the start of his career.

His most characteristic works in his main media show largely naked male figures in complicated poses of violent action, drawing from classical examples and often centred on a heroic Hercules. He, or possibly his brother, was also an innovative painter of wide landscape backgrounds, perhaps having learnt from Early Netherlandish painting. His two papal tombs were the only monuments to survive the demolition of Old St Peter's in the next century and be reconstructed in the present St Peter's Basilica.

Cathedrals, collegiate churches, and monastic churches like those of abbeys and priories, often have certain complex structural forms that are found less often in parish churches. They also tend to display a higher level of contemporary architectural style and the work of accomplished craftsmen, and occupy a status both ecclesiastical and social that an ordinary parish church rarely has. Such churches are generally among the finest buildings locally and a source of regional pride. Many are among the world's most renowned works of architecture. These include St Peter's Basilica, Notre-Dame de Paris, Cologne Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Antwerp Cathedral, Prague Cathedral, Lincoln Cathedral, the Basilica of Saint-Denis, Santa Maria Maggiore, the Basilica of San Vitale, St Mark's Basilica, Westminster Abbey, Saint Basil's Cathedral, Antoni Gaudí's incomplete Sagrada Família and the ancient cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, now a mosque.

The earliest large churches date from Late Antiquity. As Christianity and the construction of churches spread across the world, their manner of building was dependent upon local materials and local techniques. Different styles of architecture developed and their fashion spread, carried by the establishment of monastic orders, by the posting of bishops from one region to another and by the travelling of master stonemasons who served as architects. The successive styles of the great church buildings of Europe are known as Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, and various Revival styles of the late 18th to early 20th centuries, and then Modern. Underlying each of the academic styles are the regional characteristics. Some of these characteristics are so typical of a particular country or region that they appear, regardless of style, in the architecture of churches designed many centuries apart.