When Raphael was directing the work on St. Peter's, Antonio da San Gallo had been his assistant, and he therefore belonged to the party opposed to Michelangelo. In 1537 San Gallo became architect-in-chief, succeeding Baldassare Peruzzi, and he abandoned, as Raphael had done, Bramante's great design for the main construction. Michelangelo, on the contrary, went back to that plan, for whatever rancour he might feel against Bramante personally,[{110}] his genius bowed before that of the great architect. He wrote in 1555 to Bartolommeo Ammanati, "It can not be denied that in architecture Bramante was greater than any other man since classic times. He conceived the first design for St. Peter's, simple, clear and free from all confusion, and whoever like San Gallo has turned aside from this plan has turned aside from the truth."
Before the disagreement over St. Peter's, Michelangelo had twice come into sharp conflict with San Gallo over the fortifications of the Borgo and the completion of the Farnese palace.
Paul III wished to reconstruct and complete the fortifications of Rome which had been destroyed in 1527. San Gallo had been engaged on them since 1534, but the work had only been actively pushed since 1542. In February, 1545, meetings were held under the presidency of Pier Luigi Farnese in the Castle of St. Angelo to discuss the subject of the fortifications of the Borgo, and to these Michelangelo was summoned. He expressed opinions absolutely opposed to those of San Gallo and enumerated the faults already committed in the works. Hot words were exchanged, and the pope was obliged to command both men to be silent. Soon after this affair Michelangelo made a new design for the fortifications[{111}] involving the destruction of San Gallo's work, and this was accepted.[87]
Michelangelo added to this defeat another more bitter still. San Gallo had built the Farnese palace up to the second story, but his plans for the third story and the cornice did not please the pope, who turned them over to Michelangelo to be mercilessly criticised. A competition was opened in 1546 for the cornice in which Perino del Vaga, Sebastiano del Piombo, Vasari and Michelangelo took part. Michelangelo's design was accepted, and when San Gallo died from this humiliation in October, 1546, the direction of the work on the palace passed at once into his hands. Michelangelo set aside the original plan entirely and built the third story on the court on the Corinthian order. He also built the beautiful cornice, so broad and fine in conception, in which he had possibly the assistance of Vignole or Guglielmo della Porta. Even San Gallo's death did not disarm Michelangelo, who searched relentlessly for the malpractices committed under his predecessor in the work on St. Peter's and who raged against[{112}] the guilty with a violence which Vasari still echoes when he says, "Michelangelo delivered St. Peter's from thieves and bandits."
It is easy to imagine what hatred these proceedings awakened in San Gallo's party, supported by all the contractors and foremen whose faults Michelangelo had denounced and prosecuted. The members of the committee of administration themselves were accomplices.[88]
A coalition was formed against him which had for its chief Nanni di Baccio Bigio, the rascally architect whom Vasari accuses of having stolen Michelangelo's plans even before this trouble. From the very beginning of Michelangelo's direction at St. Peter's Nanni spread the rumour that he knew nothing of architecture, that his model was childish, that he squandered the money and hid himself to work at night for fear that his blunders would be seen. It was also rumoured that the cornice of the Farnese palace was in danger of falling. Michelangelo was[{113}] exasperated. "Who are these rogues, these triple scoundrels," he wrote to the committee of administration, "who, after they had spread lies about my work on the Farnese palace, lied still more in the report that they sent to the committee of St. Peter's?"
The committee, instead of defending him, joined in the chorus of his calumniators. They sent a protest to the pope because, they said, he kept them entirely ignorant of his plans, which he showed to no one, while he destroyed the work of his predecessor. They wished to be freed from any responsibility for such proceedings, especially for "the destruction which had been and continued to be so great that all who witnessed it were greatly disturbed."
They succeeded in bringing about in 1551 a meeting at St. Peter's under the presidency of the pope, where all the builders and foremen, supported by the Cardinals Salviati and Marcello Cervini (the future pope, Marcellus II), testified against Michelangelo. Vasari describes the scene for us. At this time Michelangelo had already finished the main apse with the three chapels and the three windows above them, but no one knew yet how he would vault the church, and all agreed in prophesying that the lighting would be insufficient. Michelangelo, when he was questioned by Cardinal Cervini, explained[{114}] that besides the three windows already built there would be three more in the vault, which was to be built of travertine. "You never told us anything about that," said the cardinal. "I am not obliged to tell your lordships or anyone else what I intend to do," replied Michelangelo; "your business is to take charge of the expenses and to see that no one steals. The building is my affair." He then turned to the pope and said, "Holy Father, you see what my pay is. If the miseries I endure do not help my soul it is all time and trouble lost."
The pope, who loved him, placed his hands on his shoulders and said: "You gain for both your soul and your body. Have no fear."[89]
