his assistance, not in the capacity of colleague, but as a servant to command in all things.”  Nothing is here said openly about Sangallo, who remained architect-in-chief until his death.  Still the covert wish expressed that the superintendence might be altered, shows a spirit of hostility against him; and a new plan for the lines must soon have been adopted.  A despatch written to the Duke of Parma in September 1545 informs him that the old works were being abandoned, with the exception of the grand Doric gateway of S. Spirito.  This is described at some length in another despatch of January 1546.  Later on, in 1557, we find Michelangelo working as architect-in-chief with Jacopo Meleghino under his direction, but the fortifications were eventually carried through by a more competent engineer, one Jacopo Fusto Castriotto of Urbino.

VI

Antonio da Sangallo died on October 3, 1546, at Terni, while engaged in engineering works intended to drain the Lake Velino.  Michelangelo immediately succeeded to the offices and employments he had held at Rome.  Of these, the most important was the post of architect-in-chief at S. Peter’s.  Paul III. conferred it upon him for life by a brief dated January 1, 1547.  He is there named “commissary, prefect, surveyor of the works, and architect, with full authority to change the model, form, and structure of the church at pleasure, and to dismiss and remove the working-men and foremen employed upon the same.”  The Pope intended to attach a special stipend to the onerous charge, but Michelangelo declined this honorarium, declaring that he meant to labour without recompense, for the love of God and the reverence he felt for the Prince of the Apostles.  Although he might have had money for the asking, and sums were actually sent as presents by his Papal master, he persisted in this resolution, working steadily at S. Peter’s without pay, until death gave him rest.

Michelangelo’s career as servant to a Pope began with the design of that tomb which led Julius II. to destroy the old S. Peter’s.  He was now entering, after forty-two years, upon the last stage of his long life.  Before the end came, he gave final form to the main features of the great basilica, raising the dome which dominates the Roman landscape like a stationary cloud upon the sky-line.  What had happened to the edifice in the interval between 1505 and 1547 must be briefly narrated, although it is not within the scope of this work to give a complete history of the building.

Bramante’s original design had been to construct the church in the form of a Greek cross, with four large semi-circular apses.  The four angles made by the projecting arms of the cross were to be filled in with a complex but well-ordered scheme of shrines and chapels, so that externally the edifice would have presented the aspect of a square.  The central piers, at the point of junction between the arms of