Saint Peter's Basilica

The foundation-stone of the current Saint Peter's Basilica was laid in 1506. After other schemes had been commenced and abandoned, Bramante was appointed architect, and Giuliano da San Gallo, Raphael the painter, and Fra Giocondo of Verona, were afterwards associated with him in the work. All four dying by 1520, before the work had advanced very far, Peruzzi was soon after appointed to the control of the works, although Antonio Sangallo the younger had been previously (in 1518) made assistant to Raphael. Each architect on his appointment seems to have set himself to restudy the whole matter and produce his own plan, hence it is easy to account for the delays which occurred at this time; and with the successive removals of three Popes, the difficulty of procuring funds, and the sack of Rome, it is difficult to understand how the work proceeded at all.

Saint Peter's Basilica - Vatican

Bramante prepared many designs, but his definitive scheme was a cross, of four arms of equal length, the central feature of which was a low dome not far in form from that of the Pantheon. When architects and critics regret, as they so often do, that Bramante’s design was departed from, they should not forget that they have gained something greater than the dome with which he would have crowned the pile. After his death his whole scheme seems to have been departed from, and Raphael, possibly influenced by clerical conservatism, made an exceedingly beautiful and simple plan, in a more conventional form, a design which, says Serlio, "in my opinion, is one of the fairest draughts that are to be found, out of the which the ingenious workman may help himself in many things." This plan, without any doubt, would have produced a finer building than that which now exists. It is often spoken of as Bramante’s plan, but this is an error, although it may have been based upon the previous studies of Bramante and his assistants.

At Raphael’s death, Peruzzi, appointed to the chief control, found that the piers of Bramante needed great strengthening, having almost collapsed under their own weight; anxious, too, to restrict the scope of the work, and desiring to let the dome be seen from all points of view, he reverted to the Greek cross plan. The plan he adopted was really a skilful combination of the good points of Bramante’s and Raphael’s plans: and it seems a plausible theory that Raphael’s eastern termination and Peruzzi’s plan were based upon a study (perhaps by Bramante) of the ancient Church of San Lorenzo at Milan. Peruzzi’s annotator explains that the temple was to have four doors, the high altar to occupy the middle. At the corners were to be four sacristies, upon which clock towers might be reared. Had the author been suffered to carry out his model, there can be little doubt that it would have been not only the most magnificent temple the world had seen, but one of the purest in taste.

Peruzzi, however, was cut off in 1536, not without suspicion of having been poisoned by one who hoped to succeed him in his office at Saint Peter’s, and Antonio Sangallo, who then took charge of affairs, restudied the whole matter. The exterior has much merit, but the plan little or none, compared with those which had already been made. Though retaining the Greek cross principle of Peruzzi, he proposed to add a great and well-nigh useless hall or vestibule flanked by two great campanili, giving to the exterior the form of the Latin cross. It is probable, however, that he had little opportunity of making headway with the scheme, his time being occupied in building up the niches of the great piers of the dome, and possibly by the inner wall of the southern apse, which, after it had been thickened by Michelangelo, became the outer wall of his restricted plan. The merits of Sangallo’s design were freely criticized and generally condemned by his contemporaries, who rarely appear to have done Antonio justice. Michelangelo was especially critical, and is said to have banned the design because, broken up "with its innumerable projections, pinnacles, and divisions of members, it was more like a work of the Teutons than of the good antique manner, or of the cheerful and beautiful modern style." As for Antonio’s capacity to carry out such a work, Vasari says: "It is true that he effected much, in accomplishing what we possess; but he would, nevertheless, as is believed, have seen his way more clearly through certain of the difficulties incidental to that work, had he performed his labours in company with Baldassare."

Antonio died in 1546, at sixty-one years of age, and Michelangelo, ten years his senior, succeeded. He reduced the scheme greatly, and by suppressing many of the features of the designs both of Peruzzi and Antonio, gave the plan a simplicity on a great scale. He was, however, strong enough to overcome prejudice and restore the plan of the equal arms. The cliff-like walls of the apses and the towering pilasters, as we know them, are his work, as is also the dome, for which he left a complete model and drawings. These parts of the church, however, properly belong to the succeeding or Late Period, which Michelangelo really initiated, and the extension of the nave, which ended the battle between the two forms of cross, belongs to the 17th Century. The façade exhibits Carlo Maderna’s work, with a base caricature of the portico which Michelangelo had designed to stand free of the main building as an appendage to the Greek cross scheme, but which the 17th Century architect made to stick close to the wall. Later still are the great Doric colonnades surrounding the piazza, which were begun in 1667 under Bernini.

Saint Peter's Basilica - East Elevation

It is the interior which chiefly concerns us in considering the work of this period. The internal ordinance, with its gigantic pilasters and protruding impost moldings, is probably due to Bramante, and his assistants Peruzzi and Antonio Sangallo; for although the long arm of the cross, and its colossal wagon vault, is partly the addition of Maderna, the original idea is fairly well preserved, but with late and debased details and ornaments. The form of the four supporting piers of the dome, which are among the earliest parts of the work, makes the projection of the pendentives comparatively slight, and necessitates some distortion of the pendentives carrying the circular drum. Had these been curved on plan, concentric with the dome, or had they been rectangular, there would be no irregularity; but, indeed, none is apparent as the work is executed, the huge circular panels of the Evangelists, in mosaic, filling up the spaces perfectly.

St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican make up the one group of Renaissance architecture buildings which in scale and monumental character more than holds its own with the old Roman work. In this there is significant testimony to the truthfulness of architecture as the stone book of history, for in Saint Peter’s are writ large the importance of the Church in the world of the 16th Century, the character and surroundings of its rulers, as well as the spirit and aims of the constructors of the material fabric.

The architect will not fail to observe that it is the addition of Maderna, which in its design, its vaulting and lighting, as well as its dimensions, presents so close an analogy with the Roman vaulted chamber of the Baths of Caracalla or Diocletian. Round about the dome, the part which belongs to the culminating period, there is little which need recall the old Roman models. The Greek cross plan which successive architects schemed, is founded on the early churches, while Michelangelo’s dome design is at the end of a chain in which the links are the dome of Santa Sophia and Santa Maria del Fiore. But for the principle illustrated by the Italian Byzantine domes, it would have been impossible to have "hung the Pantheon in heaven," and but for Brunelleschi’s intrepid construction at Florence, even the hand of Michelangelo must have faltered before the boldness of its drum design with the poor abutment of the sixteen twin column props. The triumph of "the hand that rounded Peter’s dome" consists largely in this, that on a scale which increases every difficulty out of all proportion, the union of both systems was successfully effected; so successfully that with the Pantheon and Santa Sophia the dome of Saint Peter’s is one of the most nobly beautiful of architectural creations.

The internal effect of Saint Peter’s Basilica is a  subject about which much has been said. All are agreed that the impression it makes on a first visit is not so overwhelming as might be expected from its prodigious dimensions. Byron, in notable verse, has expressed the idea and given a poetic cause for the absence of this effect, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his delightful picture of Modern Rome, treats of the subject at some length. The explanation may be, as he suggests, that when first one enters, the ghostly image which almost unconsciously had been cherished is shattered by the shock of the reality presented. There had been built up in the mind’s eyes vague outline, "dim, and gray, and huge, stretching into an interminable perspective, and overarched by a dome like the cloudy firmament," such an edifice in which one might keenly realize the insignificance of his own personality. But when, for the first time, you stand below the dome, there is little or none of this feeling, and the first impression is of cheerfulness and color, should you chance to see it with the sunlight streaming through the clear windows on the mosaics and colored marbles, fresh and bright through five centuries. Then, with the very limited view which can be obtained from most points, it is felt to be a poor substitute for the preconceived edifice with its boundless vistas, and the next impression is decidedly that it is not so vast a building as had been expected. The violation of what may be called the human scale, which is perpetrated no less in the enormous size of the order than in the colossal cupids, is another reason for this. Never before were classical orders used of this size, save in such monumental columns as those of Traian and Marcus Aurelius. But every moment of time spent within the building and every fresh visit increases the sense of its immensity, until, to quote Hawthorne again, "after looking many times, with long intervals between, you discover that the Cathedral has gradually extended itself over the whole compass of your idea; it covers all the site of your visionary temple, and has room for its cloudy pinnacles beneath the dome."

There is the same difficulty in realizing the immense scale of the exterior of Saint Peter's Basilica, but there never comes the same ultimate satisfaction. The order of the outer wall is still higher, about ninety-four feet, and nine feet broad, the capitals being ten feet deep. The height of the wall surrounding the structure is 165 feet, while the figures on the balustrade of the east front are nineteen feet high. While on this matter, it may be said that the total height at the dome is 435 feet, twice the height of the central towers of York or Durham Cathedrals; and although less remarkable for length than for width and height, it is longer than Rochester and Glasgow Cathedrals placed end to end. The ultimate victory of the Latin cross has deprived all spectators within a quarter of a mile to the east of their view of the dome. To see it close at hand we must go round the flank of the building, whence the effect is splendid, as it is also from any distant point of view.

Saint Peter's Basilica - Longitudinal Section

The brackets designed by Michelangelo to unite the coupled columns and entablature with the attic were never carried out, and do not seem to be required. Viewing the culminating period in Rome as a whole, we observe that, like all art of the highest attainment, it is characterized by the attention given to proportion and design in the mass, the details being made strictly subordinate to the tout ensemble kept preeminently in view. A feeling for what may be called rhythm in spacing, and a sense of satisfaction in simple arrangements and grouping is evident. The power thus gained in composition enabled the architects of this period to dispense with the elements which had lingered in the Renaissance from Gothic or Romanesque influence.

The traceried window, the carved arabesque (at least in exterior work), the splayed reveals of doorways and windows, were made to disappear, and the freedom and variety of capitals and other purely ornamental carving greatly curtailed. Closely connected with the tendency to classic imitation may be considered the revival of Greek methods and preference for rectangular compositions, and continuity of lines.  The moldings, are of the most refined types, delicate, and yet vigorous. Instead of being cut out of a beveled surface like most of the early Renaissance cornices and moldings, they approach the wider sections of the Romans, but in refinement of line they are more often Greek in feeling than Roman. Projection is much increased, and all the effect of timidity induced by such low relief as Alberti’s and Bramante’s early work disappears.

The interior decoration of Saint Peter's Basilica is dominated by figure painting. The most extreme example is of course the Sistine Chapel, the work of various artists, including Botticelli and Perugino, but remarkable chiefly for the ceiling by Michelangelo, and the vast composition on the altar wall representing the Last Judgment, painted thirty years later by the same master hand.