“It cannot be denied that Bramante’s talent as an architect was equal to that of any one from the times of the ancients until now.  He laid the first plan of S. Peter, not confused, but clear and simple, full of light and detached from surrounding buildings, so that it interfered with no part of the palace.  It was considered a very fine design, and indeed any one can see now that it is so.  All the architects who departed from Bramante’s scheme, as Sangallo has done, have departed from the truth; and those who have unprejudiced eyes can observe this in his model.  Sangallo’s ring of chapels takes light from the interior as Bramante planned it; and not only this, but he has provided no other means of lighting, and there are so many hiding-places, above and below, all dark, which lend themselves to innumerable knaveries, that the church would become a secret den for harbouring bandits, false coiners, for debauching nuns, and doing all sorts of rascality; and when it was shut up at night, twenty-five men would be needed to search the building for rogues hidden there, and it would be difficult enough to find them.  There is, besides, another inconvenience:  the interior circle of buildings added to Bramante’s plan would necessitate the destruction of the Paoline Chapel, the offices of the Piombo and the Ruota, and more besides.  I do not think that even the Sistine would escape.”

After this Michelangelo adds that to remove the out-works and foundations begun upon Sangallo’s plan would not cost 100,000 crowns, as the sect alleged, but only 16,000, The material would be infinitely useful, the foundations important for the building, and the whole fabric would profit in something like 200,000 crowns and 300 years of time.  “This is my dispassionate opinion; and I say this in truth, for to gain a victory here would be my own incalculable loss.”  Michelangelo means that, at the time when he wrote the letter in question, it was still in doubt whether Sangallo’s design should be carried out or his own adopted; and, as usual, he looked forward with dread to undertaking a colossal architectural task.

V

Returning to the Palazzo Farnese, it only remains to be said that Michelangelo lived to complete the edifice.  His genius was responsible for the inharmonious window above the main entrance.  According to Vasari, he not only finished the exterior from the second story upwards, but designed the whole of the central courtyard above the first story, “making it the finest thing of its sort in Europe.”  The interior, with the halls painted by Annibale Caracci, owed its disposition into chambers and galleries to his invention.  The cornice has always been reckoned among his indubitable successes, combining as it does salience and audacity with a grand heroic air of grace.  It has been criticised for disproportionate projection; and Michelangelo seems to have felt uneasy on this score, since he caused a wooden model of the right size to be made and placed upon the wall, in order to judge of its effect.