St Peter’s Basilica is in the center of a muddy hilltop in Rome, unfinished.  Its massive circular nave is open to the sky.  Brunelleschi of Florence is long dead. No other architect of the time has determined how to construct a dome above this enormous space to protect the interior from the elements.  Nor has the church yet learned how to protect itself from the venal ambitions and appetites  of its own elites.