 The baldachin acts as a visual focus within the basilica; it itself is a very large structure and forms a visual mediation between the enormous scale of the building and the human scale of the people officiating at the religious ceremonies at the papal altar beneath its canopy.The form of the structure is an updating in Baroque style of the traditional ciborium or architectural pavilion found over the altars of many important churches, and ceremonial canopies used to frame the numinous or mark a sacred spot.Old St. Peter's Basilica had had a ciborium, like most major basilicas in Rome, and Bernini's predecessor, Carlo Maderno, had produced a design, also with twisted Solomonic columns, less than a decade before.