After the accession of Paul III. to the Papal see, Michael Angelo was definitely appointed architect of St. Peter’s and worked on the building during the remainder of his life, although he returned to Florence several times and there executed the splendid statues which adorn the chapel of the Medicis. In his later days he was assisted by Vignola in his work, but died before its completion at the advanced age of eighty-eight. Giacomo Barrozio, called Vignola from his birthplace near Bologna, is known for his great works, the chief of which are the Jesuits’ church in Rome and the castle of Caprarolla at Viterbo, which he built for the Cardinal Alexander Farnese, and also, especially to architects, for the rules and measurements of Classical orders which he composed from the buildings of Rome with the aid of the manual of Vitruvius. This work comprises the elements of design used in nearly all the buildings erected during the two following centuries, many of their elevations being simple combinations of different pages of Vignola’s book, which to this day is the best guide for Classical proportions and the architects’ A B C. The discriminator between the various architectural styles is fond of drawing a marked distinction between Italian, French, and German Renaissance, and illustrating it by views of the typical Italian palace, with a flat tile roof and low pediments, and the typical French house, with immensely high slate roofs and pretentious dormers. Although the eye of the practised architect can distinguish between the representative work of Sansovino and Philibert Delorme, and between that of Bernini and Claude Perrault, yet such distinctions do not form separate styles, for they are but unimportant differences, caused by local influences. The subject should be looked upon in a broader sense, for all these subdivisions tend to confuse the student and lead him to forget the sequence of the great historical style of which they form part. The Jacobean, Queen Anne, and kindred so-called styles in England were merely eccentric streams flowing out of the one main channel, which were scarcely worthy of distinction and certainly not of revival in our times. In France, under each reign, there was a slight difference of treatment, chiefly in the decoration of interiors, which permits of a classification most convenient to the modern upholsterer, but for our purposes it is sufficient to apply the two divisions—Early and Late Renaissance.