It followed that Michelangelo’s first object, when he became Papal architect-in-chief, was to introduce order into the anarchy of previous plans, and to return, so far as this was now possible, to Bramante’s simpler scheme.  He adopted the Greek cross, and substituted a stately portico for the long vestibule invented by Sangallo.  It was not, however, in his nature, nor did the changed taste of the times permit him to reproduce Bramante’s manner.  So far as S. Peter’s bears the mark of Michelangelo at all, it represents his own peculiar genius.  “The Pope,” says Vasari, “approved his model, which reduced the cathedral to smaller dimensions, but also to a more essential greatness.  He discovered that four principal piers, erected by Bramante and left standing by Antonio da Sangallo, which had to bear the weight of the tribune, were feeble.  These he fortified in part, constructing two winding staircases at the side, with gently sloping steps, up which beasts of burden ascend with building material, and one can ride on horseback to the level above the arches.  He carried the first cornice, made of travertine, round the arches:  a wonderful piece of work, full of grace, and very different from the others; nor could anything be better done in its kind.  He began the two great apses of the transept; and whereas Bramante Raffaello, and Peruzzi had designed eight tabernacles toward the Campo Santo, which arrangement Sangallo adhered to, he reduced them to three, with three chapels inside.  Suffice it to say that he began at once to work with diligence and accuracy at all points where the edifice required alteration; to the end that its main features might be fixed, and that no one might be able to change what he had planned.”  Vasari adds that this was the provision of a wise and prudent mind.  So it was; but it did not prevent Michelangelo’s successors from defeating his intentions in almost every detail, except the general effect of the cupola.  This will appear in the sequel.

Antonio da Sangallo had controlled the building of S. Peter’s for nearly thirty years before Michelangelo succeeded to his office.  During that long space of time he formed a body of architects and workmen who were attached to his person and interested in the execution of his plans.  There is good reason to believe that in Sangallo’s days, as earlier in Bramante’s, much money of the Church had been misappropriated by a gang of fraudulent and mutually indulgent craftsmen.  It was not to be expected that these people should tamely submit to the intruder who put their master’s cherished model on the shelf, and set about, in his high-handed way, to refashion the whole building from the bottom to the top.  During Sangallo’s lifetime no love had been lost between him and Buonarroti, and after his death it is probable that the latter dealt severely with the creatures of his predecessor.  The Pope had given him unlimited powers of appointing and dismissing subordinates, controlling operations, and regulating