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What had happened to the edifice in the interval between 1505 and 1547 must be briefly narrated, although it is not within the scope of this work to give a complete history of the building. Bramante's original design had been to construct the church in the form of a Greek cross, with four large semi-circular apses.
It contains, for instance, the Sixtine Chapel, which is considerably older than the present church, having been built by Sixtus the Fourth, whose beautiful bronze monument is in the Chapel of the Sacrament, in Saint Peter's. It contains, too, Raphael's Stanze, or halls, and Bramante's famous Loggie, the beautiful architecture of which is a frame for some of Raphael's best work.
For they saw his great city of Milan as it has never been seen again, before the savage invader had spoiled its charm and defaced its loveliness; when Bramante's churches and porticoes rose in perfect symmetry against the sky, and the glowing tints of Leonardo's frescoes were yet fresh upon the walls.
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.
Accordingly, there remained a large vacant space to cover between the older frescoes by Signorelli, Perugino, Botticelli, and other painters, round the walls below the windows, and that new miracle suspended in the air. There was no flagrant impropriety in Bramante's thinking that his nephew might be allowed to carry the work downward from that altitude.
There is, besides, another inconvenience: the interior circle of buildings added to Bramante's plan would necessitate the destruction of the Paoline Chapel, the offices of the Piombo and the Ruota, and more besides. I do not think that even the Sistine would escape."
We shall see how he hampered the rare gifts of the former by employing him on uncongenial labours; and it was no great merit to give a free rein to the inexhaustible energy of Raffaello. The project of a new S. Peter's belonged to Julius. Leo only continued the scheme, using such assistants as the times provided after Bramante's death in 1514.
He reverted to Bramante's main conception of the Greek cross, but altered the details in so many important points, both by thickening the piers and walls, and also by complicating the internal disposition of the chapels, that the effect would have been quite different.
The ground-plan, which is all I know of Peruzzi's project, has always seemed to me by far the most beautiful and interesting of those laid down for S. Peter's. It is richer, more imaginative and suggestive, than Bramante's. The style of Bramante, in spite of its serene simplicity, had something which might be described as shallow clearness.
So, by the light of a thousand torches, at the close of the short winter's day, the long procession of mourners bore Duchess Beatrice to her last resting-place under Bramante's cupola, in the church of Our Lady.
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