The article “On the Wing,” in The Catholic World for May, is one of unusual merit; but in the haste of composition, the writer, at page 216, makes a mistake in stating that S. Peter's Church at Rome was “built from the designs of Bernini, and completed by Michael Angelo.” Bernini had nothing to do with the edifice proper. He only built the baldacchino over the high altar and the colonnade in the public square adjoining the church. Michael Angelo completed the piers of the dome, and made a wooden framework on which to construct a dome; but the dome was constructed by Giacomo della Porta from designs of his own. The edifice proper was finished by Carlo Maderno, and on the plan of a Latin cross, the suggestion of Bramante, overruling Michael Angelo's suggestion of the form of a Greek cross.
It is very seldom that The Catholic World is at fault, even in ecclesiology; but I think here is a plain case.
Having made S. Peter's something of a study both in Rome and at home, I feel myself at liberty to make you these comments. Yours very truly,
J. A. Wilstach.
The poem “For ever,” originally sent to this magazine, and published in our May number, was also published in Lippincott's of the same month, the author concluding, from its non-appearance in The Catholic World, that it had been declined.