The course of public events prevented this scheme from being carried out.  First came the pontificate of Adrian VI., so sluggish in art-industry; then the pontificate of Clement VII., so disastrous for Italy and Rome.  Many years elapsed before art and literature recovered from the terror and the torpor of 1527.  Peruzzi indeed returned to his office at S. Peter’s in 1535, but his death followed in 1537, when Antonio da Sangallo remained master of the situation.

Sangallo had the good sense to preserve many of Peruzzi’s constructive features, especially in the apses of the choir and transepts; but he added a vast vestibule, which gave the church a length equal to that of Raffaello’s plan.  Externally, he designed a lofty central cupola and two flanking spires, curiously combining the Gothic spirit with Classical elements of style.  In order to fill in the huge spaces of this edifice, he superimposed tiers of orders one above the other.  Church, cupola, and spires are built up by a succession of Vitruvian temples, ascending from the ground into the air.  The total impression produced by the mass, as we behold it now in the great wooden model at S. Peter’s, is one of bewildering complexity.  Of architectural repose it possesses little, except what belongs to a very original and vast conception on a colossal scale.  The extent of the structure is frittered by its multiplicity of parts.  Internally, as Michelangelo pointed out, the church would have been dark, inconvenient, and dangerous to public morals.

VII

Whatever we may think of Michelangelo’s failings as an architect, there is no doubt that at this period of his life he aimed at something broad and heroic in style.  He sought to attain grandeur by greatness in the masses and by economy of the constituent parts.  His method of securing amplitude was exactly opposite to that of Sangallo, who relied upon the multiplication rather than the simplification of details.  A kind of organic unity was what Michelangelo desired.  For this reason, he employed in the construction of S. Peter’s those stupendous orders which out-soar the columns of Baalbec, and those grandiose curves which make the cupola majestic.  A letter written to the Cardinal Ridolfo Pio of Carpi contains this explanation of his principles.  The last two sentences are highly significant:—­

“Most Reverend Monsignor,—­If a plan has divers parts, those which are of one type in respect to quality and quantity have to be decorated in the same way and the same fashion.  The like is true of their counterparts.  But when the plan changes form entirely, it is not only allowable, but necessary, to change the decorative appurtenances, as also with their counterparts.  The intermediate parts are always free, left to their own bent.  The nose, which stands in the middle of the forehead, is not bound to correspond with either of the eyes; but one hand must balance the other, and one eye be like its fellow.  Therefore it may be assumed as certain that the members of an architectural structure follow the laws exemplified in the human body.  He who has not been or is not a good master of the nude, and especially of anatomy, cannot understand the principles of architecture.”