the buildings at S. Peter’s, the Corridore of the Belvedere, the Convent of San Pietro ad Vincula, and other of his edifices, which have had to be strengthened and propped up with buttresses and similar supports in order to prevent them tumbling down.”  Bramante, during his residence in Lombardy, developed a method of erecting piers with rubble enclosed by hewn stone or plaster-covered brickwork.  This enabled an unconscientious builder to furnish bulky architectural masses, which presented a specious aspect of solidity and looked more costly than they really were.  It had the additional merit of being easy and rapid in execution.  Bramante was thus able to gratify the whims and caprices of his impatient patron, who desired to see the works of art he ordered rise like the fabric of Aladdin’s lamp before his very eyes.  Michelangelo is said to have exposed the architect’s trickeries to the Pope; what is more, he complained with just and bitter indignation of the wanton ruthlessness with which Bramante set about his work of destruction.  I will again quote Condivi here, for the passage seems to have been inspired by the great sculptor’s verbal reminiscences:  “The worst was, that while he was pulling down the old S. Peter’s, he dashed those marvellous antique columns to the ground, without paying the least attention, or caring at all when they were broken into fragments, although he might have lowered them gently and preserved their shafts intact.  Michelangelo pointed out that it was an easy thing enough to erect piers by placing brick on brick, but that to fashion a column like one of these taxed all the resources of art.”

On the 18th of April 1506, Julius performed the ceremony of laying the foundation-stone of the new S. Peter’s.  The place chosen was the great sustaining pier of the dome, near which the altar of S. Veronica now stands.  A deep pit had been excavated, into which the aged Pope descended fearlessly, only shouting to the crowd above that they should stand back and not endanger the falling in of the earth above him.  Coins and medals were duly deposited in a vase, over which a ponderous block of marble was lowered, while Julius, bareheaded, sprinkled the stone with holy water and gave the pontifical benediction.  On the same day he wrote a letter to Henry VII. of England, informing the King that “by the guidance of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ he had undertaken to restore the old basilica which was perishing through age.”

V

The terms of cordial intimacy which subsisted between Julius and Michelangelo at the close of 1505 were destined to be disturbed.  The Pope intermitted his visits to the sculptor’s workshop, and began to take but little interest in the monument.  Condivi directly ascribes this coldness to the intrigues of Bramante, who whispered into the Pontiff’s ear that it was ill-omened for a man to construct his own tomb in his lifetime.  It is not at all improbable