FIG. 169.—ORIGINAL PLAN OF ST. PETER’S, ROME.
ST. PETER’S. The culmination of Renaissance church architecture was reached in St. Peter’s, at Rome. The original project of Nicholas V. having lapsed with his death, it was the intention of Julius II. to erect on the same site a stupendous mausoleum over the monument he had ordered of Michael Angelo. The design of Bramante, who began its erection in 1506, comprised a Greek cross with apsidal arms, the four angles occupied by domical chapels and loggias within a square outline (Fig. 169). The too hasty execution of this noble design led to the collapse of two of the arches under the dome, and to long delays after Bramante’s death in 1514. Raphael, Giuliano da San Gallo, Peruzzi, and A. da San Gallo the Younger successively supervised the works under the popes from Leo X. to Paul III., and devised a vast number of plans for its completion. Most of these involved fundamental alterations of the original scheme, and were motived by the abandonment of the proposed monument of Julius II.; a church, and not a mausoleum, being in consequence required. In 1546 Michael Angelo was assigned by Paul III. to the works, and gave final form to the general design in a simplified version of Bramante’s plan with more massive supports, a square east front with a portico for the chief entrance, and the unrivalled Dome, which is its most striking feature. This dome, slightly altered and improved in curvature by della Porta after M. Angelo’s death in 1564, was completed by D. Fontana in 1604. It is the most majestic creation of the Renaissance, and one of the greatest architectural conceptions of all history. It measures 140 feet in internal diameter, and with its two shells rises from a lofty drum, buttressed by coupled Corinthian columns, to a height of 405 feet to the top of the lantern. The church, as left by Michael Angelo, was harmonious in its proportions, though the single order used internally and externally dwarfed by its colossal scale the vast dimensions of the edifice. Unfortunately in 1606 C. Maderna was employed by Paul V. to lengthen the nave by two bays, destroying the proportions of the whole, and hiding the dome from view on a near approach. The present tasteless façade was Maderna’s work. The splendid atrium or portico added (1629–67), by Bernini, as an approach, mitigates but does not cure the ugliness and pettiness of this front.
FIG. 170.—PLAN OF ST. PETER’S, ROME, AS NOW STANDING.
The portion below the line A, B, and the side chapels C, D, were added by Maderna. The remainder represents Michael Angelo’s plan.
St. Peter’s as thus completed (Fig. 170) is the largest church in existence, and in many respects is architecturally worthy of its pre-eminence. The central aisle, nearly 600 feet long, with its stupendous panelled and gilded vault, 83 feet in span, the vast central area and the majestic dome, belong to a conception unsurpassed in majestic simplicity and effectiveness. The construction is almost excessively massive, but admirably disposed. On the other hand the nave is too long, and the details not only lack originality and interest, but are also too large and coarse in scale, dwarfing the whole edifice. The interior (Fig. 171) is wanting in the sobriety of color that befits so stately a design; it suggests rather a pagan temple than a Christian basilica. These faults reveal the decline of taste which had already set in before Michael Angelo took charge of the work, and which appears even in the works of that master.
THE PERIOD OF FORMAL CLASSICISM. With the middle of the 16th century the classic orders began to dominate all architectural design. While Vignola, who wrote a treatise upon the orders, employed them with unfailing refinement and judgment, his contemporaries showed less discernment and taste, making of them an end rather than a means. Too often mere classical correctness was substituted for the fundamental qualities of original invention and intrinsic beauty of composition. The innovation of colossal orders extending through several stories, while it gave to exterior designs a certain grandeur of scale, tended to coarseness and even vulgarity of detail. Sculpture and ornament began to lose their refinement; and while street-architecture gained in monumental scale, and public squares received a more stately adornment than ever before, the street-façades individually were too often bare and uninteresting in their correct formality. In the interiors of churches and large halls there appears a struggle between a cold and dignified simplicity and a growing tendency toward pretentious sham. But these pernicious tendencies did not fully mature till the latter part of the century, and the half-century after 1540 or 1550 was prolific of notable works in both ecclesiastical and secular architecture. The names of Michael Angelo and Vignola, whose careers began in the preceding period; of Palladio and della Porta (1541–1604) in Rome; of Sammichele and Sansovino in Verona and Venice, and of Galeazzo Alessi in Genoa, stand high in the ranks of architectural merit.