Michael Angelo’s greatest architectural work was the cupola of St. Peter’s church. Bramante, the original architect, had executed his design only up to the springing of the four great arches of the central intersection. Giuliano di Sangallo, Giocondo, Raffaelle, Peruzzi, and Antonio Sangallo, had been successively engaged, after Bramante’s decease, to carry on the work; but during the inert sway of Adrian VI., and amid the catastrophes of Clement VII., little had been accomplished. At length Paul III. appointed Michael Angelo to the post of architect, much against his will, as he was then seventy-two years of age. He immediately laid aside all the drawings and models of his predecessors, and taking the simple subject of the original idea, he carried it out with remarkable purity, divesting it of all the intricacies and puerilities of the previous successors of Bramante, and by its unaffected dignity, and unity of conception, he rendered the interior of the cupola superior to any similar work of modern times. He was engaged upon it seventeen years, and at the age of eighty-seven he had a model prepared of the dome, which he carried up to a considerable height; in fact, to such a point as rendered it impossible to deviate from his plan; and it was completed in conformity with his design, by Giacomo della Porta, and Domenico Fontana. The work was greatly delayed in consequence of the want of necessary funds, or else Michael Angelo would have himself completed this great monument of his taste and skill. If we are indebted to Bramante for the first simple plan of the Greek Cross of St. Peter’s, and the idea of a cupola to crown the centre, still it must be allowed that to Michael Angelo is due the merit of carrying out the conception of the original architect, with a beauty of proportion, a simplicity and unity of form, a combination of dignity and magnificence of decoration, beyond what even the powers of Bramante could have effected. Such was the unparalleled eminence which this wonderful genius attained in the three sister arts of sculpture, architecture, and painting. His chief characteristics were grandeur and sublimity. His powers were little adapted to represent the gentle and the beautiful; but whatever in nature partook of the sublime and the terrible, were portrayed by him with such fidelity and grandeur as intimidates the beholder. Never before nor since has the world beheld so powerful a genius. The name of Michael Angelo will be immortal as long as the peopled walls of the Sistine chapel endure, or the mighty fabric of St. Peter’s rears its proud dome above the spires of the Eternal city. MICHAEL ANGELO’S FIRST PATRON.