R. A. Scotti (14 page)

“I will build a new, broad, and commodious road,” the architect proposed to St. Peter, “so that old and feeble souls may travel on horseback. And then I will make a new Paradise with delightful residences for the blessed.”

When St. Peter rejected his proposal out of hand, Bramante offered to go down to hell and build a new and better inferno. Bramante's grand plans didn't interest the keeper of the keys.

“Tell me,” St. Peter demanded, “what made you destroy my church?”

Trying to assuage him, Bramante answered, “Don't worry, Peter. The new Pope will build a new, more beautiful church for you.”

“Well, then,” Peter replied, “you must wait at the gate until it's finished.”

Bramante died in 1514. Another century would pass before St. Peter's was consecrated, and all the major architects in Rome would have a hand in its construction.

T
he stage was suddenly empty. Within seventeen months, the twin engines of the Roman Renaissance were gone, leaving the old St. Peter's partially demolished and the new Basilica a work barely in progress. Between 1505 and 1510, Bramante had completed the Basilica crossing. He had raised the four giant piers that would support his flying-saucer dome, joined them with soaring coffered vaults, and established an internal order of paired Corinthian pilasters so colossal that the stepped bases alone were ten feet high and the shafts began far above eye level. Every element of his construction drew the eye upward. At the western end, he had completed Rossellino's tribune and faced the exterior with Doric columns, and he had begun building the corner chapels.

It has been said that Bramante built the skeleton of the Basilica, and those who came after him covered it with muscle, sinew, and skin. A truer description is that Bramante gave St. Peter's its soul, and his successors added the body.

In his eulogy, Egidio da Viterbo, the fiery orator and friend of Julius, declared:

Although Bramante had made extraordinary progress in a very few years, when he died nothing was certain except the scale of the Basilica. His design was so unsettled that in his good-natured satire, Guarna has St. Peter saying, “We still don't know where to put the doors of my church.” More alarming than the vacillation were the structural concerns. The foundations of the new Basilica were shifting. Cracks appeared in the piers. From the outset, the project had been ambitious. Increasingly, it seemed impractical.

 

The Pantheon is a solid cylinder, and the dome rests on top of it. In effect, it stands on the ground, and the massive weight is distributed evenly. The design of the dome, which is four times thicker at the base than at the top, also reduces the weight that the continuous wall must bear. Because space was an active element in Bramante's architecture, he wanted to keep the core—the central circle beneath the dome—open, allowing the arms of the Basilica to extend from it like roads from a hub. The four discrete piers would have to absorb the full weight of the dome.

After Bramante's death, there was concern that the piers were not strong enough to support the dome, and worse, that the construction of the dome was beyond technical competence. Bramante's concept was untried. No one had ever vaulted such a broad expanse at such a dizzying height and balanced it on such dubious supports. It was a risky and daring experiment—a fantasy, some said.

Serlio called the design “a great revelation to architects,” but he doubted that it could be executed. Criticizing the dome as “bold rather than well-considered” and Bramante's calculations as “utopian,” he wrote: “As the elevation shows, the great mass and weight of the dome was to rest on four soaring piers; any prudent architect would do well to place a mass of this kind on the ground, and not so high up.”

Prudent or not, the great piers were in place and vaulted, determining irrevocably the diameter and elevation of the dome and the height of the nave. From that starting point, everything else had to proceed organically. But the surrounding Basilica was still on the drawing board.

 

There were three contenders to replace Bramante: Michelangelo, Giuliano da Sangallo, and Raphael.

Michelangelo had no interest in the position. As a token of esteem or an effort to assuage his conscience, Julius had left him ten thousand ducats in his will to complete a much-reduced sculpture, and Michelangelo had finally resumed work on the tomb. Still, he seemed the obvious choice. He was a unique talent, a Florentine, and a boyhood friend of the new pope. But Leo wanted him immortalizing the Medici, not building an Olympian edifice for the della Rovere pope. Also, Leo knew Michelangelo too well, and he preferred to keep a comfortable distance between them. “Buonarroti is an alarming man,” he said, “and there is no getting on with him.”

Instead of appointing Michelangelo to work on the Basilica or allowing him to sculpt the tomb, Leo dispatched him to Florence to the Church of San Lorenzo. Denied his dream again by a second capricious pope, Michelangelo “went off in tears.”

With his old friend out of contention, the candidacy of Giuliano da Sangallo looked more promising. Sangallo had several points in his favor: he was Florentine, he had designed many projects for the Medici, he was an accomplished architect,
and
he was already in place at St. Peter's. But once again, he was passed over in favor of an artist with much less architectural experience.

Although Raphael was a painter, not a builder, he had one clear advantage. He was the new pope's favorite artist. The Italian word
simpatico
best describes the relationship between Leo and Raphael. Pope and painter were two of a kind—young, happy hedonists who seemed to breeze through life. A contemporary described them as “amiable epicureans who made Christianity a pleasure and took their heaven here.”

In the summer of 1514, Leo appointed the thirty-one-year-old painter to succeed Bramante as
magister operae
. Raphael wrote excitedly to his uncle:

Although he had passed them over, Leo prevailed on the two venerable architects, Sangallo and Fra Giocondo, to stay and work with the inexperienced new
capomaestro
. The solution seemed inspired, and Raphael, at least, was pleased with the arrangement. In the same letter to his uncle, dated July 1, 1514, he explained:

A
s architect of St. Peter's, Raphael became the toast of Rome. He lived more like a prince than a painter in a palace built by Bramante and moved through the city in a swarm of fifty or so disciples, assistants, sycophants, and hangers-on. He was young, gifted, rich, and as beautiful as a Roman god.

Raphael led a charmed life. Everything seemed to come easily. His talent was effortless, as if he had a touch of divinity. His art raised no doubts, evoked no terrors, and idealized whatever it depicted. It was the apogee of Renaissance painting.

His signature velvet beret angled over his golden curls, Raphael cut a romantic figure in the streets of Rome and the salons of the Vatican. He was the darling of Pope Leo, and of a fair percentage of the most beautiful women in the city. They found excuses to visit his studio in the Spina di Borgo and dispensed their favors generously.

Raphael was a “very amorous person,” according to Vasari, young, handsome, and lionized—a celebrity comparable to a movie star or sports idol today. Although engaged to be married to Maria Bibbiena, a cardinal's niece, described as beautiful and dignified, Raphael was a reluctant bridegroom. To avoid his prospective bride, he once hid in Agostino Chigi's villa with his mistress of the moment,
la fornarina
, a baker's daughter from Trastevere.
*

Raphael's commissions were as numerous as his conquests. He was designing a country villa on Monte Mario for the pope's cousin, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, frescoing Chigi's riverside palace, painting portraits, designing scenery for the elaborate pageants that Leo enjoyed, and operating a veritable art “factory” that turned out Madonnas like
cornetti
from a bakery. Many of Raphael's Madonnas, it was said, had the face of his latest mistress.

He bragged to his uncle:

In spite of Raphael's enthusiasm, the second architectural triumvirate was as short-lived as the first. Fra Giocondo died within a year, and the aged Sangallo limped home to Florence, opening the way for his nephew, Antonio the Younger, to become second architect. Baldassare Peruzzi, who built Chigi's villa, was named number three.

Pope Leo's third triumvirate was young, ambitious, and overextended. Because they were building the defining edifice of the age, the three architects were in constant demand—and constant disagreement over how to realize the miracle in stone.

 

The monumental Basilica had matched the personality of Julius. Leo's character, by contrast, lacked heroic dimensions. He was a connoisseur of the decorative arts, a lover of fine gold-work, tapestries, and jewelry more than of colossal constructions.

Critics had denounced Julius for confusing spiritual and political power, but they never questioned his conviction. To him, the glory of God and of the Church was paramount. Leo's loyalties were divided. He was a prince of the Church, but he was also a prince of Florence, and he ruled both simultaneously. Restoring Florence to the luster of the Quattrocento and his family to its rightful place as princes of the Republic were his priorities.

Although he preferred an exquisite miniature to a megalith, Leo appreciated architecture as political capital, exploited by the Roman emperors and now embraced by their successors, the Roman popes. Only the mightiest could construct a monumental edifice, and in Leo's eyes, there were none mightier than the Medici.

He was prepared to pour money into the Basilica as if gold alone could make stone rise. If Raphael's excited letter of July 1, 1514, can be believed, in the first year alone, the Medici pope was planning to spend sixty thousand ducats, more than twice what Julius had spent in any given year. But like any large-scale operation that is managed from the top, the loss of the boss threw the project into confusion.

Leo could no more oversee the enormous Basilica operation than Hanno the elephant could bless himself. The line of control, both financial and artistic—as true as a straight edge under Julius and Bramante—grew twisted and murky. Leo was hopeless with money and not much better at administration, and while his new
capomaestro
had outstanding gifts and noble intentions, he was young and inexperienced. Raphael was neither controlling nor conniving enough to fill Bramante's role.

 

Julius and Bramante had completed the core of the Basilica. It was an extraordinary accomplishment given the epic size and the time they had. But their most impressive achievement was not the work they realized. It was the immensity, the sheer impudence, of their idea. Their tragic flaw was a lack of clarity. They left no definitive plan for future pontiffs and architects to follow, and no cost estimate to restrain more opulent tastes.

Given the quick enthusiasms of pope and architect, it's not surprising that they never settled easily on a single blueprint. There is some suggestion that Bramante built a wooden model. If he did, it was lost, and all that remains is boxes and books of drawings, sketches, and designs. Their volume is both a measure of his enthusiasm and an indication of how fluid his plans were. He had a quick, fertile mind. New ideas came thick and fast, and the latest always seemed the best, and captured his enthusiasm.

The only certainty in the grand enterprise was the dome. From the moment of conception, it was the locus in the scheme of the Basilica—the alpha and omega, the starting point and the sublime finale. The shape and elevation would change over time, but not the fact of the dome, repeated like a mantra in the words that Paris de Grassis recorded and that have become immortal, as if inscribed in the very stones of the Basilica: “To raise the dome of the Pantheon on the Basilica of Maxentius.”

The dome was the fixed idea from which the imagination of Bramante and every architect who followed him wandered freely. By building from the center out, Bramante not only established an irrevocable scale, he also allowed his successors wide latitude. Everything except the circumference of the dome was open to debate, even the fundamental shape of the Basilica. Although his preference was a Greek cross, according to the plans in the Uffizi and in Menicantonio's sketchbook, Bramante and Julius had considered the Latin one too—or at least experimented with both on paper. The argument between the two cruciforms—the Greek cross with four arms of equal length and the Latin cross with an elongated vertical arm—is a choice between the ideal and the practical. The symmetrical Greek cross appealed to Bramante's Renaissance sensibilities. Its pure geometric form was considered a reflection of God. The asymmetrical Latin cross was more practical, because the extended arm would accommodate the large crowds that attend papal ceremonies. Since the Latin cross was the form of Constantine's church, Julius may have asked Bramante to develop a similar design to quiet the criticism—a compromise or creative deception, suggesting that the new St. Peter's would hew more closely to the original than they actually intended.

The Greek-versus-Latin-cross controversy would plague the project for more than a century. Each time it seemed resolved, a new architect or a new pope went back to the drawing board. While Leo was in office, the debate swung back and forth numerous times.

Fra Giocondo and Raphael both favored a Latin cruciform. Raphael's plan had an aisled nave, an impressive, double-storied façade, and a piazza with the obelisk of Caligula in the center—very much as it is today. Although he kept the dome and vaulting just as Bramante had planned, he encircled the apses with aisles on the theory that a ring of ambulatories would absorb some of the thrust of the dome, lessening the strain on the piers.

Unity had inspired Bramante's design. Raphael's ambulatories had a divisive effect, creating a separation between the core of the Basilica and the external walls. He emphasized the division by introducing the Doric order to articulate the outside walls. There was little coherence between the interior and exterior of the Basilica.

Some scholars suggest that Bramante may have converted to the Latin cross before he died, because Raphael would not have deviated fundamentally from his mentor and friend. There is little concrete evidence to support or refute the argument.

More grandiose than Bramante's, Raphael's design matched Leo's extravagance if not his budget. But it was never executed. Raphael found little common ground with his partners. Antonio da Sangallo took exception to much of Raphael's Basilica plan and Peruzzi took an opposite direction. He favored a return to a centralized Greek cross with four entrances, one at the end of each apse and all leading to the papal altar.

The three young architects proposed contending designs. Irresolution is expensive, and in this case, disastrously so. It caused arguments, delays, divisions, and backbiting. With little direction and no definitive blueprint, plans multiplied like the biblical loaves and fishes, and the price tag kept rising.

In the years after Bramante's death, building was erratic at best. Some progress was made on the south arm of the church. Leo christened it the Cappella del Re di Francia—“the Chapel of the King of France”—hoping that by giving the king's name to a significant portion of the Basilica, Francis I would be induced to pay the construction costs. Although Leo continued to lavish money on the new Basilica, ordering the most expensive travertine for the exterior walls, St. Peter's did not advance significantly.

The architects and their associates were becoming wealthy men, but their flourishing careers left them little time to build the church. As a result, much of the money that went into St. Peter's was spent on keeping the work yard operating while the architects pursued other commissions. Although more money went into salaries and supplies than into actual building, each architect wanted to leave his signature. Drafts were drawn and redrawn, the arms of the Basilica extending and contracting, the elevation of the dome peaking and flattening, then peaking again, and still there was no blueprint agreed on by all.

Raphael's most significant contribution was not in stone and mortar but in his architectural renderings. He introduced exact scale drawings that masons could read with precision.

Like most sixteenth-century builders, Bramante had marked out a working plan on-site and then explained it in detail to his masons and stonecutters. There was often a scale model in wood or clay for them to follow, as well. For moldings, capitals, and other intricate work, full-size patterns were drawn to guide the artisans.

Raphael added another dimension. He was used to drawing detailed sketches and cartoons for his frescoes. When he turned to architecture, he realized that linear perspective did not give a full or always accurate picture of spatial relations. In a note to Leo, he explained that architectural renderings need “to master all the dimensions of a building and see all its parts without distortion.”

His renderings gave three views—ground plan, elevation, and section. Each element of the building, both interior and exterior, was clearly represented. This not only provided closer directions for the master masons, it also freed the architect from being on site all the time. Raphael's three-dimensional renderings would become accepted architectural practice, though not in his lifetime.

 

Bramante, Leonardo, and Michelangelo lived to be old men. Raphael had only a dozen years in Rome for his genius to reveal itself. He was a Roman candle, blazing brilliantly and briefly across the city. According to Vasari's romanticized version, one wild April night in 1520, “having indulged in more than his usual excess,” Raphael returned home a spent man in need of “restoratives.” Instead of fortifying him, the doctors bled him. He never recovered.

Raphael died on Good Friday, April 6, more probably of the plague. It was his thirty-seventh birthday. Leo's third triumvirate had proved as short-lived as the previous two.