Even from the outside, the tower and chancel of the Church of St Peter signal that this is a building of special character. These distinctive features were made possible, ultimately, by the drive towards modernization initiated in the reforms of the Council of Trent (1545–1563). The endeavour to modernize had an important influence on the architecture of Mannerism, a pan-European style that favoured the types of extravagant and contrasting solutions that characterize St Peter’s. The impression of exceptionality is brilliantly confirmed by the high altar. For reasons of aesthetics, liturgy, and tradition, the Second Vatican Council’s non-binding recommendation to erect ‘people’s altars’ (1965) was never implemented at St Peter’s – something that only enhances this high altar’s significance.