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Whether it was judged impossible to carry out Bramante's project of the central dome, or for some other reason unknown to us, Raffaello altered the plan so essentially as to design a basilica upon the conventional ground-plan of such churches. He abandoned the Greek cross, and adopted the Latin form by adding an elongated nave.
This favourite palace of the Moro's has been turned into a barrack, and little remains of its former splendour; but Bramante's tower is still standing, and on the north gate of the keep we may read a significant inscription placed there by the citizens of Vigevano, recording the many benefactions of this most illustrious duke, who loved his native city so well, and was never tired of heaping benefactions on her people.
Why should he be interrupted in the full swing of triumphant energy? "Accordingly, he sought an audience with the Pope, and openly laid bare all the persecutions he had suffered from Bramante, and discovered the numerous misdoings of the man." It was on this occasion, according to Condivi, that Michelangelo exposed Bramante's scamped work and vandalism at S. Peter's.
It is claimed that the origin of the Cathedral of St. Peter is due to the impulse given by Pope Julius II. who decided to erect a grand monument for himself in his life-time, and the new edifice was needed to shield it. St. Peter's was begun in 1506 and dedicated in 1626. Bramante's wonderful plans were accepted, and both Michael Angelo and Raphael aided in its construction.
Vasari, referring to this period of Peruzzi's life, says: "The Pope, thinking Bramante's scheme too large and not likely to be in keeping, obtained a new model from Baldassare; magnificent and truly full of fine invention, also so wisely constructed that certain portions have been adopted by subsequent builders."
The decoration and improvement of this church and convent now became the chief object of Lodovico's thoughts. The beautiful shrine which he had already adorned with Bramante's cupola and portico, was now doubly dear to him for the sake of Beatrice and his dead children.
So the ages slipped along till the church was in bad repair and in danger of falling, when Nicholas the Fifth was Pope, in 1450. He called Alberti and Rossellini, who made the first plan; but it was the great Julius the Second who laid the first stone of the present basilica, according to Bramante's plan, under the northeast pillar of the dome, where the statue of Saint Veronica now stands.
The new cloister or Canonica attached to the ancient basilica of S. Ambrogio, with its graceful columns and dark-green marble capitals, and the apse of S. Maria delle Grazie, soon to be crowned with that matchless cupola that remains among Bramante's most perfect works, were both begun in 1492.
But the history of the Creation, Fall, and Deluge, when first exposed, looked like a work complete in itself. Michelangelo, who was notoriously secretive, had almost certainly not explained his whole design to painters of Bramante's following; and it is also improbable that he had as yet prepared his working Cartoons for the lower and larger portion of the vault.
From the rocky heights on which their town was built, the people of Palestrina could look across the Campagna the great plain between and see the walls and towers of Rome. At the time of our story, Saint Peter's had withstood the sack of the city, which happened a dozen years before, and Bramante's vast basilica had already begun to rise.
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