he left no working models fit for use, except in the case of the cupola, a free course was opened for every kind of innovation.  So it came to pass that subsequent architects changed the essential features of his design by adding what might be called a nave, or, in other words, by substituting the Latin for the Greek cross in the ground-plan.  He intended to front the mass of the edifice with a majestic colonnade, giving externally to one limb of the Greek cross a rectangular salience corresponding to its three semicircular apses.  From this decastyle colonnade projected a tetrastyle portico, which introduced the people ascending from a flight of steps to a gigantic portal.  The portal opened on the church, and all the glory of the dome was visible when they approached the sanctuary.  Externally, according to his conception, the cupola dominated and crowned the edifice when viewed from a moderate or a greater distance.  The cupola was the integral and vital feature of the structure.  By producing one limb of the cross into a nave, destroying the colonnade and portico, and erecting a huge facade of barocco design, his followers threw the interior effect of the cupola into a subordinate position, and externally crushed it out of view, except at a great distance.  In like manner they dealt with every particular of his plan.  As an old writer has remarked:  “The cross which Michelangelo made Greek is now Latin; and if it be thus with the essential form, judge ye of the details!” It was not exactly their fault, but rather that of the master, who chose to work by drawings and small clay models, from which no accurate conception of his thought could be derived by lesser craftsmen.

We cannot, therefore, regard S. Peter’s in its present state as the creation of Buonarroti’s genius.  As a building, it is open to criticism at every point.  In spite of its richness and overwhelming size, no architect of merit gives it approbation.  It is vast without being really great, magnificent without touching the heart, proudly but not harmoniously ordered.  The one redeeming feature in the structure is the cupola; and that is the one thing which Michelangelo bequeathed to the intelligence of his successors.  The curve which it describes finds no phrase of language to express its grace.  It is neither ellipse nor parabola nor section of the circle, but an inspiration of creative fancy.  It outsoars in vital force, in elegance of form, the dome of the Pantheon and the dome of Brunelleschi, upon which it was actually modelled.  As a French architect, adverse to Michelangelo, has remarked:  “This portion is simple, noble, grand.  It is an unparalleled idea, and the author of this marvellous cupola had the right to be proud of the thought which controlled his pencil when he traced it.”  An English critic, no less adverse to the Italian style, is forced to admit that architecture “has seldom produced a more magnificent object” than the cupola, “if its bad connection with the building is overlooked.”  He also adds that, internally, “the sublime concave” of this immense dome is the one redeeming feature of S. Peter’s.