Antonio Sangallo and the Construction of the Papal Grottoes

Tomb of Pius XI in the Vatican Grottoes
beneath Saint Peter's Basilica

I gave short shrift yesterday to Antonio Sangallo the younger in my eagerness to get to Michelangleo’s role in the design and construction of St. Peter’s Basilica.  I had mentioned how he had diverted materials and labor from the Basilica to build a palace for himself on the Via Giulia, Rome’s most fashionable street but his time as Capomaestro or chief architect was marked by nepotism and graft as he gave contracts to all his relatives and friends, hiring members of his clique for all the chief positions.  Yet he did make several important contributions to the project,  Despite a mutual loathing between Bramante and the Sangallo clan, he had been hired by Bramante as chief carpenter.  Bramante had recognized the young Sangallo’s genius and Antonio had not disappointed him, devising a unique system of scaffolding to brace Bramante’s massive piers until the concrete set.  When Leo X put Sangallo in charge after Raphael’s death, Sangallo constructed a scale model of the projected Basilica according to his design.  It was perfect in detail and even on a scale of 1:29 it was over twenty feet high in the dome and 23 feet long from front to back.  It cost over 6000 ducats—a parish church could have been built for less.  But it gave—for the first time—a detailed plan of what the finished Church might look like.  In the end, Michelangelo’s revisions and Maderno’s façade would (thankfully) give a very different look to the Basilica but at least now there was a plan even if it would be changed.  Just seeing a model of the Basilica made people think that it might become a reality out of the rubble pile that currently stood on the site. 

      Sangallo made an even more important contribution to the Basilica by raising the level of the floor 12 ½ feet above the level of Constantine’s basilica.  While this altered Bramante’s proportions, and not for the better, it also created the crypt beneath the nave that would become the grottoes of the papal tombs.  (In the 20^th century, the crypt floor would be lowered a meter to give more headroom.)  Despite his elaborate plans, however, actual construction on the basilica would progress little by the time of Sangallo’s death in 1546.  It was just as well as his successor, Michelangelo, wanted to clear the deck and start over.  Michelangelo would develop what his predecessors, especially Bramante, had built but at the same time he would take those elements and integrate them into a design uniquely his own.   

Back to the Saga of Saint Peter's Basilica

Michelangelo's dome from
the Vatican Gardens

You know it has been almost six months since the last posting on the history of Saint Peter’s Basilica.  It is taking as long to tell the story as it did to build the darn thing and like the building, the telling of the story is coming in fits and starts.  All through the sixteenth century it was stop and go as the popes were distracted by other things—like the sack of Rome, the Protestant Reformation,  the Council of
Trent.  And so too with this blog, my mind wanders to other topics, old and new, but now let’s come back to the basilica at least for a while.

      Look at the label’s list on the right hand side of the blog, and scroll down to “Saint Peter’s Basilica” and you can see in the entry for November 6 2011 that we left off the story with the death of Raphael, the hiring of Peruzzi to replace him, and the standstill to progress with Adrian VI and then with the sack of Rome.  So, let’s pick it up there—and here we come to the take-charge master of the works who left his indelible mark, Michelangelo.  

     Well, actually there was an interlude of about ten years or so between Peruzzi and Michelangelo when Antonio da Sangallo was the chief architect.  At this point all that had actually been built were the four piers on which Bramante had planned to construct the dome—the same four piers that stand today at the crossing of the Basilica.  Sangallo strengthened these piers so that a heavier dome—one supported by a large drum—could be built on them.  But most of what Sangallo did was to divert building materials and labor from the  Basilica to the palace he was constructing for himself on the Via Giulia.  That palace stands today as the Palazzo Sacchetti. 

Michelangelo was a superior genius but he never admitted that anyone else could have been in the same league.  He was not about to carry out the plan of some lesser genius—or one whom he perceived to be a lesser genius.  However, he was no fool and recognized that each of the previous plans had certain features that were brilliant.  He totally redesigned the master plan for the Basilica—which can be considered  his work more than that of any other—but he drew on the work of Bramante and Raphael.  He reverted to Bramante’s original idea of a Greek Cross—i.e. with the four arms of the cross of equal length—under a central dome.  And Michaelangelo designed the dome—one of the most elegant in the world—and for centuries the largest. The dome is truly a wonder as it seems to float over the empty space of the central crossing of the Basilica without support.   Unfortunately, due to alterations in the nave and façade by Michelangelo’s successor, Carlo Maderno, the dome is not clearly visible from Saint Peter’s Square but can only be seen from the distance. 

Saint Peter's Proceeds in Fits and Starts

Raphael's Plan for Saint Peter's

Well, Raphael was by all means a great artist, but he wasn’t half the architect Bramante was.  In the first place, he just wasn’t focused enough for architecture.  Saint Peter’s was only one of the many commissions he was working on.  He was busy frescoing the villas of various cardinals and princes and his workshop was turning out Madonna’s at an remarkable rate.  He was surrounded with an army of assistants to prepare canvases for paints and apply the plaster for frescos, to mix the pigments and produce the paints.  He was making money hand over fist and spending it even faster.  Raphael was a bon vivant and a ladies’ man.  And in between the business, the pleasure, the paintings, the frescoes, he was supposed to produce a plan for Saint Peter’s.  Good Luck!  Moreover, the help he had inherited from the triumvirate of architects when he took Bramante’s place vanished.   His Dominican friar teammate, Fra. Giovanni Giocondo died within the year and the old priest had been the engineer—and a very good one—to figure out the technical aspects of the design.  Giulano da Sangallo, the business manager was feeling his age and retired to Florence.  Pope Leo—who was more interested in jewelry and Hanno, his pet elephant—than architecture replaced the team to work with Raphael.  He named Baldassare Peruzzi to replace the old friar, and Giuliano da Sangallo’s nephew—Antonio the Younger Sangallo—to take his uncle’s place. It wasn’t a happy arrangement. 

Bramante's Plan for Saint Peter's

     Raphael for some reason decided to make a fundamental change in Bramante’s perfectly symmetrical plan.  Instead of the Greek Cross plan in which all four arms of the cross would be equal and lead to the central dome over the tomb of the Apostle and its altar, Raphael designed a Latin Cross plan where the “stem” of the Cross would be twice as long as the other “arms” of the cross.  In addition to destroying the symmetry of the building, it threatened to make the building look much more heavy as well as cut down the amount of natural light, or rather reduce the effect of the natural light, entering the basilica through the dome.  The Raphael plan just lacked the elegance of the original design.  It did make for a larger church, but it failed to inspire. 
      In the event, Raphael did not live long enough to see his designs bear fruit.  He died in 1520 at only thirty-seven years of age.  Peruzzi succeeded as main architect and reverted to the Bramante plan of a Greek Cross though he did retain some features—mostly the worst ones—of Rafael’s plan.  Peruzzi didn’t get to see his plans put into action either.  Thank heavens.   Leo died the year after Raphael and was succeded by the pedantic Dutchman (yes, I know that is redundant) Cardinal Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens who reigned as Adrian VI.  Fortunately he reigned briefly.  One year, eight months, and five days later he was dead; the Roman crowds, delighted to be rid of the dour Dutchman, hung a laurel wreath on the door of the papal physician to thank the doctor for not having prolonged the boredom of this tediously scholarly pope who was far more interested in Reform (which the Romans have always abhorred) than art, beauty, and the Renaissance.  Non  fiducia mai un papa che ha letto solo (never trust a pope who sleeps alone) as the Romans are wont to say.   
      In November 1523 Adrian was succeeded by Leo’s cousin, Clement VII.  The Medici never slept alone, though Clements preference, unlike Leo’s, was for women.  Rampant heterosexuality in a pope brings problems of its own as we will see when we hear the story of why Henry VIII didn’t get his annulment, but that is another story.  Suffice it to say that Clement, like Leo, was a papal disaster.  Leo triggered Luther’s break with the Church; Clement would trigger Henry VIII’s.  Maybe the Romans are wrong about that sleeping alone thing, celibacy is a good idea at least for popes.  But on May 6^th 1527 the troops of Emperor Charles V sacked Rome.  It was a debacle from which it would take Rome decades to recover.  We will go into detail in a future entry, but the half-demolished old basilica, half-built new basilica was looted, graves emptied, treasures stolen, clergy, soldiers, and laity alike massacred.  When Peruzzi died nine years later, construction on the basilica had not advanced. The walls stood incomplete where they stood at all, the four great piers waited for a dome that no one could engineer, and the revenues were drying up as country after country fell to a series of Reformations that snapped their ties with Rome.     

Popes Come and Go, but Saint Peter's Basilica Remains

the tomb of Leo X in Santa Maria Sopra

Minerva, Rome,

We mentioned that Julius II died in 1513,  Hopefully God judged Julius with mercy but the humanist scholar Erasmus who along with his English friends, Sir Thomas More and Dean (of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London) John Colet were leading voices calling for Church Reform  did not.  The Dutchman  wrote:
The popes are sufficiently generous with …the terrible bolt of the papal bull, which by a flicker hurls the souls of men to the depths of hell.  Our Christian fathers and Vicars of Christ wield the bold against no one with more zeal than against those who are moved by the devil to nibble at an diminish the patrimony of Peter  …  they look on themselves as true apostles…scattering what they are pleased to call her enemies   As if the Church had more deadly enemies than impious popes who by their silence cause Christ to be forgotten, who use His laws to make money, who adulterate his word with force interpretations, and who crucify him with their corrupt life 
Whatever the judgment rendered and where Julius finds himself today, his death meant that there was to be a new pope.  He was worse.  At least Julius, if not a good man was a good—even great—Pope.  His successor, Leo X, was a disaster both as a man and a pope.  As a man he was indolent and given to the most indulgent luxury.  He was a Medici, son of il Magnifico, and had been raised to see conspicuous consumption to be the highest of the virtues.  His sexual exploits were more discreet than most of his contemporaries but no less avid.  His preferences in bed were for other males—not an uncommon trait in the high renaissance—so he left no progeny but rumors abounded of young artists and even younger clerics anxious to advancement who feathered their nests by feathering his bed.  As a pope—well, it wasn’t that he did much bad just that he didn’t do much of anything.  “The papacy is ours, let us enjoy it” was his theme and so the Chair of Peter was mostly an opportunity for hunting, dining, theatricals, and entertainments of all sorts. He had absolutely no interest in Julius tomb and little more in the basilica.  At this point the basilica was a hodgepodge of new construction and old ruins, for the most part unroofed, with the papal altar left exposed to the elements beneath the open sky where the dome was planned to someday rise.   Julius for whatever his faults was a soldier and weathered the papal ceremonies in the open air, but Leo was of a more delicate constitution and so Bramante was told to build something of an open shed to enclose the papal altar—not unlike those carports one sees in the less well to do neighborhoods of Mississippi or East Texas. Bramante was getting old and the death of Julius meant that the changes of patronage were blowing through the Renaissance.   With Julius—and under Bramante’s influence—the Renaissance threw its patronage to artists from Urbino.  But Leo was a Medici and the Medici were Florentines.  And the Florentine artists, kept on the margins of influence under Julius—were now the chief beneficiaries of patronage.  Bramante was out of favor.  But Leo was a gracious man who showed his displeasure with a velvet gloved hand.  Bramante was not removed as chief architect of Saint Peters, only given two “assistants” to help him.  Like Bramante they were old men—Leo didn’t want to make long term commitments.  One was the Dominican friars Giovanni Giocondo.  He was no mere theologian—a philosopher, engineer, mathematician, Latinist, illustrator, antiquarian—he was a true renaissance man.  But he was eighty.  The other “assistant”—and one who was given managing control over the project—was Giuliano da Sangallo.  Sangallo had been both friend and architect to Julius until Bramante maneuvered his way into the Pope’s confidence.  (Again, he did it by building the Tempietto which may be the most beautiful building in Rome so it wasn’t an unmerited advancement.)  Now Sangallo was back—and holding the real power.  It was I imagine a sweet revenge.  It did not last long,however.  Bramante died within the year.  Strangely it was not a Florentine who replaced him but the young artist from Urbino who had so charmed Julius—Raphael 

Saint Peter's and the Complex of Personalities

    I had hoped to post this yesterday but then we had an internet issue and I didn't have access to the blog site.  I have a lot of material on the building of Saint Peter's--and that is one of the most Popular topics that I have been posting on--so I hope to make sure that I can do a posting each day this week, 
     As I mentioned yesterday, as the center of the Renaissance moved from Florence to Rome in the papacy of Julius II Rome was alive with artists and architects and musicians.  Among the painters, Pinturicchio, Signorelli, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi—known as Il Sodoma—Lorenzo Lotto, Johannes Ruysch, Perugino all were in Rome looking for patronage. 
     Of all these the competition for leadership of the pack was between Michelangelo and Donato Bramante.  In retrospect, there was no real competition—Michelangelo stood alone—but papal patronage was a fickle thing and when it came to the arts, Julius was no monogamist.  Michelangelo was entrusted with Julius’ greatest personal project—his tomb.  And Bramante was entrusted with Julius greatest public project—the building of a new Basilica to hold that tomb.  Think Julius might have been a “4” on the enneagram?  It was, at least in his mind, all about him.  In any event, the competition for papal recognition was bitter between the two artists and for Michelangelo, at least, it was all a matter of pride.  Michelangelo was an artist for the sake of the art he needed in his inner drive to create.  He was indifferent to the financial and career aspects of art.  He also was impossible to work with, temperamental and insecure.  He worked alone.  In fact, very few people ever broke through Michelangelo’s shell and he went through life, for the most part, a loner.  Michelangelo’s homosexuality is well established historically though it seems that it also caused him considerable personal turmoil and inner conflict.  Whether Michelangelo in fact ever let the deep love he felt (and wrote about) for a succession of younger men manifest itself in sexual intimacy is debated among Michelangelo scholars.  It may have been this conflicted sexuality that made the artist so eccentric and melancholic.  In any event, his personality worked against him for Bramante, though much less talented than Michelangelo (and much more talented than the other 99.999% of the human race) had a charming and extroverted personality that gave him an advantage over the high strung and moody Florentine. Some have suggested that it was Bramante that put Pope Julius up to withdrawing Michelangelo from the tomb project and forced him—against his will—to fresco the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, knowing that Michenangelo—a sculptor, not a painter—would fail miserably.  The Sistine project was very high on Julius’s priorities, the chapel having been built by Julius’ uncle and patron, Sixtus IV della Rovere.  Of course Michelangelo pulled the rabbit out of the hat and produced what well might be his greatest work, the Sistine ceiling.  But Bramante had more than one trick up his sleeve.  Ok, Michelangelo could paint.  But Bramante found a rival for him in this field too and brough Rafaello Sanzio, today generally known as Raphael, to Julius’ attention.  While Michelangelo was sulking on his scaffold in the Sistine and now allowing anyone to see his work, Bramante’s protégé Raphael, was cheerily painting the new papal apartments.  In fact Julius was so taken Raphael’s talents that he had the recently completed works by Piero della Francesca and Signorelli destroyed so that Raphael could point over them.  Like Bramante, Raphael was charming and extroverted.   And he did work alone but had an entourage of assistants whom he had trained to fulfill a host of minor functions. Raphael would prepare the cartoons of his painting but his team would apply the fresh plaster, mix the paints, even paint in the figures from Raphael’s cartoons and sketches and then the Master would come through and do the detail work and fine points.      
      Bramante for his part was so different than Michelangelo.   Whereas Michelangelo was obsessed with detail and would never entrust his work, as did Raphael, to others, Bramante was a “big-picture” man.  Brash and outspoken, he got along better with Julius—himself an out-of-control extrovert—than Michelangelo.  But Bramante’s flaw was his lack of attention to detail.  A great basilica requires an architect of wide vision but the revolutionary size of the projected building also required an engineer of meticulous detail.  That Bramante was not.  In many ways Bramante was more suited to design for the illusions of the stage than for the physics of architecture.  To cut costs he also cut quality of building materials.  Marble and stone was replaced by tufa (a material found in the region near Rome which is like soft earth when cut from the ground but which hardens like stone after being exposed to the atmosphere), brick, and cement.  He began building the four piers that would support the projected central dome over the tomb of the apostle, but had no idea how to actually raise a dome over the open spaces left by the supporting arches that would rise from those piers.  Domes were tricky things.  While the ancient Romans had known how to construct them, the art had been lost until Brunelleschi had built the dome of the Cathedral in Florence only some sixty or seventy years before.  The Vatican dome was to be much larger and in retrospect it seems reckless, indeed stupid, to have built the foundations without having a plan for the dome itself.  But that was Bramante—he went step by step, trial and error, flying by the seat of his pants as we say—as he built his basilica.  In the end, it would not be he who solved the problem or built the dome. 

Financing the Basilica

The Chapel of Nicholas V in the Vatican

Palace

Let’s go back to the saga of building Saint Peter’s.  We had discussed in earlier blogs  (April 16, 2011)  that by the fifteenth century Constantine’s basilica was falling down—the north wall was totally out of plumb and in danger of collapse.  There had been plans to expand the old basilica and enlarge it under Nicholas V in the middle of the fifteenth century and the papal architect, Bernardo de Matteo Rossellino had actually begun building a new apse, but with the Nicholas’ death in 1455 the project came to nothing.  (One thing that does last to Nicholas’ everlasting credit—at least measured in earthly values, if not heavenly—is the exquisite chapel in the Vatican frescoed by Dominican friars, Fra Angelico. To my mind it is the most beautiful of all the churches and chapels in the Vatican—more than the Sistine Chapel or Saint Peter’s itself.  It is quite small—smaller than most bedrooms in a modest suburban American home—but exquisite for the sublime frescoes of Saints Laurence and Stephen.   O well, back to the Basilica (which I have always thought to be rather garish). 

Fra Angelico fresco of Saint Laurence

distributing alms

     Anyway, it was Julius II della Rovere who decided to tear down the old Basilica and construct a new one—a radical decision. (Imagine of Benedict decided to tear down the current Basilica and build a new one “in the modern style;” don’t you think that infallible or not his ass would be in a sling with all the neo-cons?  Well Julius had it no easier.  People were horrified.  Julius was called all sorts of things even by the Cardinals.  (I bet the biggest critics of any pope are from among the Cardinals though they keep their deprecations among their closest friends.)  Originally Julius’ motivation was he wanted the space to hold this new tomb that he had Michelangelo carving over 40 larger-than-life figures to adorn.  But Julius was a man with many irons in the fire.  Michelangelo was working on the tomb, Bramante on the basilica.  But the pope wanted to expand his palace.  First he didn’t want to live in the apartments of his predecessor, Alexander VI Borgia, whom he hated.  Alexander was an evil man, but that wasn’t what stopped Julius from liking him.  Julius understood weaknesses of the flesh as well as anyone.  It was just that the Borgias and the Della Roveres were the Hatfields and McCoys of fifteenth century Rome.   Each family had held the papacy at different times and tried to shut out the other family from power and influence in their turn.   So Julius had new apartments built and commissioned Raphael to fresco them. But that was only part of the remodeling project.  Innocent VIII had built a villa on a hill just north of the Vatican palace to which he could retire in the heat of Roman summers—the hill commanding refreshing breezes that missed the palace lying on lower ground.  The villa was named the Belvedere—“beautiful to see” or “beautiful views” because it gave lovely views of the meadows and orchards at the time lying between the Vatican and the Castle Sant’Angelo. Julius decided to connect the palace and the villa with two long narrow buildings, creating a massive courtyard between.  When one visits the Vatican Museum today you spend a lot of time in these wings that are wonderfully frescoed and which for years held the treasures of the Vatican Library.   Not only was Julius building basilicas and palaces and tombs, but everyone who was anyone in Rome was into building—palaces, churches, monuments.  With Julius, Rome had displaced Florence and become the center of the Renaissance.  Rome was swarming with artists, sculptors, architects, musicians, littérateurs, gold and silversmiths, all seeking patronage.  And the Church officials were only too happy to patronize them.  An essential part of the career path in the Church was liberality in patronizing the arts.  Prelates became known for the churches they were building or furnishing and for the opulent palaces in which they lived and the lavishness with which they entertained.  I make fun, as you know, of the clerical coxcombs who parade around in trains of scarlet silk and furred capes today—but it fit the espirit of the times. (Whether it fit the Gospel any better then than now is another question, but then I am sure Jesus has shed more tears over his Church than he ever did over Jerusalem of old.) This created huge employment—stone masons and carpenters, cooks, stewards, servants, mixers of paints, cutters of stone, hewers of trees, pages, vinters, brewers, bakers, chandlers, glass blowers, weavers,  tailors, grocers, stable hands, milliners, construction workers, brickmakers : Renaissances are not cheap.  As I mentioned in earlier blogs money was being drained from all over Europe to pay for the extravagance but at the same time—as Democrats know and Republicans fear—spending 

Ordination of Laurence as Deacon

creates jobs and Rome was abustle with work and employment means money and money means more jobs.  But how could it be kept being fueled?  Pope Julius had an excellent banker—we would refer to him today as a Finance Minister or Secretary of the Treasury, he didn’t stand behind a window counting out twenties.  His name was Agostino Chigi and he had an idea. “ Why not,” he asked Julius, “why not sell indulgences?”  indeed, why not?

Saint Peter's Basilica and Martin Luther.

This fresco in one of the Roman basilicas is the only

surviving depiction of Old St' Peter's which was torn

down by Julius II to build the current St, Peter's.

Well, the Rome of Julius II was a busy place.  The south-west pier of what was to be the central dome was rising up behind and towering over Old Saint Peter’s.  This would be one of the four piers that would support the central dome.  The old basilica was still standing and in fact being used, but the plan was for the new one was to grow up around and over it.  As his rival (and nemesis) Bramante was supervising the building plans, Michelangelo was collecting marble in a vast workyard –wagonload upon wagonload of marble from Cararra, tons of marble, to be used for the 40 larger-than-life figures that were to adorn the tomb.  Julius was expanding the Vatican Palace and hiring Raphael—a friend of Bramante’s—to decorate the suite of rooms that he had built for himself overlooking the Belvedere courtyard.  Meanwhile, Raphael and Bramante were conspiring together to bring down Bramante’s rival, Michelangelo and they persuaded the pope to abandon, at least for the present, the project  of his tomb have Michelangelo, a sculptor and not a painter, fresco the ceiling of the chapel that Julius’ uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, had built some thirty years before.  Michelangelo was not happy about this change in project—he was even more dedicated to the tomb project that Julius, its future occupant (or so Julius thought).  All this was enormously expensive.  The first year’s construction cost over 12,000 ducats.  The second year’s building more than doubled that to just under 30,000.  To give you an idea of cost—a middle class family income might be about 40 ducats a year.  That would translate to approximately 15,000,000 the first year and 35,000.000 the second.  This is not to complete the church—far from it.  The Church was to take approximately 105 years to complete and while every year’s projects may not be as intensive as this first year, all they had to show at this point—50,000,000 spent—is one pier of the dome!  And that doesn’t include the work on the palace or the tomb.  And there are other projects going on all over Rome—though many are being paid for my various cardinals and princes who, like the pope, were vying for displays of power and wealth. 
     So where is the money going to come from to pay for this basilica?  Welll, there were various sources of income.  The Papal States, like other nations, have taxes.  They also have monopolies on certain items.  Central Italy—the Papal States—contained some of the richest alum mines in the world and alum was a necessity for the dying of cloth and Europe’s economy rested heavily on the cloth trade.  But still—this was barely enough.  Well there were a wide variety of fees coming in to Rome.  Every Archbishop, bishop, abbot, cathedral dean, and other major official needed to have his election or appointment confirmed by the Holy See.  He was expected to pay the “annate”—the first year’s income from his new post—to the Holy See.  Moreover, during the time the see or abbacy or deanery had been empty—its income was frequently appropriated by the Holy See.  Money was flowing into Rome from every part of Europe!  Lots of money!  Renaissances are not cheap!  When kings and dukes and minor nobles needed to have a marriage annulled—well there were fees for that sort of thing.  A university or a cathedral or a monastic foundation required a certain privilege that exempted them from a particular law or obligation or gave them some honor over their peers—it could be arranged, for a price. During the reign of Julius II, a young Augustinian friar was sent down to Rome from Germany on business for his congregation.  Entering the city through the Flaminian Gate—he fell to his knees on the site of today’s Piazza del Popolo (in front of the Church and monastery of Santa Maria del Popolo where he would live for his stay in Rome, and cried “Hail, Holy Rome—thrice Holy for the Blood of the Martyrs shed here.  When he left Rome a month later he had a different opinion. “Everything is for sale in Rome,” he would declare.  And indeed it was!!!  This was the visit of Martin Luther and it established a direct connection between the construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica and the Reformation.      

Back to Our Story of Saint Peter's Basilica

Vitrivuian Man, sketch of Leonardo

da Vinci

You know, we left Old Saint Peter’s falling down, Julius II in need of a place to put his tomb—the one he had Michaelangelo working on (see entries of April 19^th and 20^th)—and lots of intrigue going on in Rome.  Lots of intrigue still goes on in Rome, but let’s return to the story of how we moved from Old Saint Peter’s to new Saint Peter’s.  it takes a lot of guts to tear down the monumental basilica over the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, built by Constantine, standing for a thousand years plus, and a symbol of the Catholic world.  Imagine if today Pope Benedict said “Let’s tear down this old basilica and built something modern here…”  Well, it does take a lot of imagination to think of Benedict wanting to do something modern, but only a pope with the guts of Julius II could have done it in his day and do it he did.  And he took heat for it!  After all seven Emperors had been crowned there; one hundred and eighty four popes had presided in the basilica; dozens of saints were entombed in its altars, and unknown numbers of the dead lay beneath its floor.  Julius had a personal architect—Giuliano Sangallo.  When Julius as a Cardinal had gone to France in exile during the papacy of his implacable enemy, the lecherous Alexander VI, Sangallo had accompanied him.   He was sure the job was to be his—but it wasn’t.   A quiet and unassuming architect of no great previous accomplishment was building a small church—a very small chapel actually—the Tempietto, which was astonishing Rome for the perfection of its design.  It won over Julius who hired Donato Bramante to design his new basilica. 

Bramante's Plan for the new Vatican Basilica

     Bramante had come from a family of farmers but showed not aptitude for the plow and did show an aptitude for canvas and brushes and pigments—so he became an artist.  He studied originally in his native Urbino where the court of the Duke, Federigo di Montefeltro, was one of the most spirited centers of Renaissance culture.  From Urbino he moved to Milan where he was introduced to the Florentine genius, Leonardo da Vinci.  The two formed a twenty-year friendship and the influence of Leonardo on Bramante’s philosophy of art is apparent to anyone who compares Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man to Bramante’s designs for the Tempietto and later for his original design for the new basilica.  When Julius saw the design for Saint Peter’s he was overcome by its geometrical perfection. 
     Bramante’s plan was a totally symmetrical plan which would have located the tomb of the Apostle directly beneath a central dome.  It was a curious combination of two types of ancient Roman buildings—the basilica and the temple.  Like the Pantheon, a temple to all the gods (pan theon) it was centrally domed.  Like the Basilica of Maxentius it would be a vaulted hall—or actually the new basilica would be four vaulted halls converging at the papal altar beneath this central dome over the tomb of Saint Peter.   But this new basilica was to leave the ancient monuments in the dust of history—higher, wider, longer than the surviving buildings of ancient Rome.  It is a question if it could even have been built with the engineering materials and skills of the time: it would have been almost  a third larger than the basilica eventually built.  And it was innovative not only in its engineering but in its design.  The altar would be not in an apse, but central, approachable from every side.  (There are several surviving ancient Roman Churches with a central altar—San Stefano Rotondo, Santa Costanza, and San Teodoro to name three.)  The work required a “new” masonry—the “old" masonry of stone with which the great gothic cathedrals had been built would not allow for the vast spans of Bramante’s design.  Bramante carefully studied the ruins of ancient Rome and discovered the lost art of making concrete from crushed volcanic gravel, sand, lime, and broken stone.  This was the magic the architect needed.  Concrete was the material that made the vast barrel vaults possible.  Concrete and brick construction could be faced with marble, granite, and other stone to give the impression of stone masonry but provide a far more flexible building material to bear the weight of the huge vaults and the soaring dome.  This new basilica would be everything Julius dreamed of as a setting for his tomb.  But the work was just beginning and so much would happen in between and Julius—well he lies today in a borrowed vault beneath a monument bearing another pope’s name.  The last will be first and the first last.  But that story is yet to come.