+ST. PETER’S.+ The culmination of Renaissance church architecture was reached in +St. Peter’s+, at Rome. The original project of Nicholas V. having lapsed with his death, it was the intention of Julius II. to erect on the same site a stupendous mausoleum over the monument he had ordered of Michael Angelo. The design of Bramante, who began its erection in 1506, comprised a Greek cross with apsidal arms, the four angles occupied by domical chapels and loggias within a square outline (Fig. 169). The too hasty execution of this noble design led to the collapse of two of the arches under the dome, and to long delays after Bramante’s death in 1514. Raphael, Giuliano da San Gallo, Peruzzi, and A. da San Gallo the Younger successively supervised the works under the popes from Leo X. to Paul III., and devised a vast number of plans for its completion. Most of these involved fundamental alterations of the original scheme, and were motived by the abandonment of the proposed monument of Julius II.; a church, and not a mausoleum, being in consequence required. In 1546 Michael Angelo was assigned by Paul III. to the works, and gave final form to the general design in a simplified version of Bramante’s plan with more massive supports, a square east front with a portico for the chief entrance, and the unrivalled +Dome+, which is its most striking feature. This dome, slightly altered and improved in curvature by della Porta after M. Angelo’s death in 1564, was completed by _D. Fontana_ in 1604. It is the most majestic creation of the Renaissance, and one of the greatest architectural conceptions of all history. It measures 140 feet in internal diameter, and with its two shells rises from a lofty drum, buttressed by coupled Corinthian columns, to a height of 405 feet to the top of the lantern. The church, as left by Michael Angelo, was harmonious in its proportions, though the single order used internally and externally dwarfed by its colossal scale the vast dimensions of the edifice. Unfortunately in 1606 _C. Maderna_ was employed by Paul V. to lengthen the nave by two bays, destroying the proportions of the whole, and hiding the dome from view on a near approach. The present tasteless façade was Maderna’s work. The splendid atrium or portico added (1629-67), by _Bernini_, as an approach, mitigates but does not cure the ugliness and pettiness of this front. [Illustration: FIG. 170.--PLAN OF ST. PETER’S, ROME, AS NOW STANDING. The portion below the line A, B, and the side chapels C, D, were added by Maderna. The remainder represents Michael Angelo’s plan.]