the schism of the North had driven it into blind conflict with advancing culture, so S. Peter’s remains the monument to after ages of a moment when the Roman Church, unterrified as yet by German rebels, dared to share the mundane impulse of the classical revival.  She had forgotten the catacombs and ruthlessly destroyed the Basilica of Constantine.  By rebuilding the mother church of Western Christianity upon a new plan, she broke with tradition; and if Rome has not ceased to be the Eternal City, if all ways are still leading to Rome, we may even hazard a conjecture that in the last days of their universal monarchy the Popes reared this fane to be the temple of a spirit alien to their own.  It is at any rate certain that S. Peter’s produces an impression less ecclesiastical, and less strictly Christian, than almost any of the elder and far humbler churches of Europe.  Raised by proud and secular pontiffs in the heyday of renascent humanism, it seems to wait the time when the high priests of a religion no longer hostile to science or antagonistic to the inevitable force of progress will chaunt their hymns beneath its spacious dome.

The building of S. Peter’s was so momentous in modern history, and so decisive for Italian architecture, that it may be permitted me to describe the vicissitudes through which the structure passed before reaching completion.  Nicholas V., founder of the secular papacy and chief patron of the humanistic movement in Rome, had approved a scheme for thoroughly rebuilding and refortifying the pontifical city.[46] Part of this plan involved the reconstruction of S. Peter’s.  The old basilica was to be removed, and on its site was to rise a mighty church, shaped like a Latin cross, with a central dome and two high towers flanking the vestibule.  Nicholas died before his project could be carried into effect.  Beyond destroying the old temple of Probus and marking out foundations for the tribune of the new church, nothing had been accomplished;[47] nor did his successors until the reign of Julius think of continuing what he had begun.  In 1506, on the 18th of April, Julius laid the first stone of S. Peter’s according to the plans provided by Bramante.  The basilica was designed in the shape of a Greek cross, surmounted by a colossal dome, and approached by a vestibule fronted with six columns.  As in all the works of Bramante, simplicity and dignity distinguished this first scheme.[48] For eight years, until his death in 1514, Bramante laboured on the building.  Julius, the most impatient of masters, urged him to work rapidly.  In consequence of this haste, the substructures of the new church proved insecure, and the huge piers raised to support the cupola were imperfect, while the venerable monuments contained in the old church were ruthlessly destroyed.[49] After Bramante’s death Giuliano di S. Gallo, Fra Giocondo, and Raphael successively superintended the construction, each for a short period.  Raphael, under Leo X., was appointed