For from the level of the aisle arches a dome, even on a proportionately high drum, could not be made to reach the level of the cornice of the enclosing wall unreasonably elevated for the sake of the gigantic external order. But Michael Angelo nevertheless constructed such a dome (_A_, Fig. 32), although it had to be sunk up to its crown beneath the aisle roof, and then, for external effect, he built another dome over it (_B_, Fig. 32). To light the lower dome it was necessary to sink oblique openings, _a_, through the massive masonry of the roof, and to light the useless vaulted chamber, _b_, which he was obliged to make over the barrel vault of the inner compartment (the crown of which is still farther down below the roof), the well, _c_, had to be sunk. Thus instead of making a reasonable design with ornamental details appropriate to its structural forms, Michael Angelo first conceived an ornamental scheme consisting of the inappropriate colossal order, and then fitted the building to it, filling up vacant spaces with extravagantly massive solids and useless voids, and resorting to other tortuous devices to piece out a fundamentally irrational system. Such is St. Peter’s church, which, though it has been much criticised, has been more generally lauded as a model of architectural greatness. Its real character has rarely been analyzed or rationally considered. That it has qualities of majesty and grandeur need not be denied; but these qualities are mainly due to its vast magnitude, and to what it retains of the design of its first, and greatest, architect. The manner in which the scheme of Bramante was modified and distorted by his successors, and chiefly by Michael Angelo, notwithstanding his professions of admiration for Bramante’s intentions, is far from admirable, as I think the foregoing account of its structural and artistic aberrations must show. The building as a whole is characterized by incongruity and extravagance, and when we consider further that the ornamentation of the interior is for the most part a cheap deception, the rich coffering of the vaulting and the pilasters of the great order being wrought in stucco on a foundation of brickwork, we get the measure of the ideals and architectural standards of men who, like Vasari, could write of it that, “not in Christendom, nor in all the world, can a building of greater magnificence and grandeur be seen.”[69] And this short-sighted admiration did not abate as time went on, as we learn from the estimates quoted by Fontana in his well-known book,[70] among which are the following: “Temple more famous than that of Solomon,” “Unique miracle of the world,” “Chief among the most celebrated of Christendom,” “Compendium of the arts,” “Basis of the Catholic faith,” “Unique edifice of the orb of earth,” etc., etc.