R. A. Scotti by Basilica: The Splendor, the Scandal: Building St. Peter's

flare. His expression suggests an impatient stallion of a man, proud and assured. Sangallo fully expected to be named magister operae —master of all Vatican works. He had coffered the ceiling of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, using the first gold from the New World, and built the della Rovere palace. More significantly, he was thoroughly trained in Roman architecture and had employed imperial forms in a number of his best buildings. Although Sangallo was a gifted architect, his design fell short of the pope’s expectations. The reason may be discerned from the judgment of Vasari: Sangallo represented the Tuscan style “better than any other architect and applied Doric order more correctly than Vitruvius.”
    Julius wanted much more. The Cinquecento must have seemed like a miraculous time. The world was embarking on the Age of Discovery. Unimagined lands were being mapped, conquered, and claimed, and oceans of gold and silver would soon wash across the seas from the Americas.
    Julius wanted his own miracle in stone—a Basilica that would “embody the greatness of the present and the future,” that would dwarf the epic constructions of the Caesars and proclaim the power and the glory of Christ and his Church. For this—the enterprise of the century—he turned to his new architect, Donato Bramante, an amiable, middle-aged man of no soaring accomplishments. Bramante’s only notable building in Rome was the Tempietto, the “little temple” still under construction on the Gianicolo in the shadow of San Pietro di Montorio. It was a flawless miniature—nothing as perfect had been built in Rome since the Temple of Venus—and it had captivated Julius.
    The art world of 1505 was a whorl of internecine rivalries, and within those fiercely competitive circles, the pope’s choice was stunning. Bramante was an outsider, not part of any clique. He had come from the court of Urbino, by way of Milan, where he had been a friend and collaborator of another notable outsider, the unpredictable Leonardo da Vinci. * The selection of Bramante put Sangallo, Michelangelo, and the other Florentine artists on guard. The sides were drawn before the first stone of the Basilica had been laid.
    Julius had a keen understanding of the artistic psyche. Although history portrays him as a ferocious character, the man who built a palace to shelter a broken torso of Apollo and ordered all the church bells of Rome to ring when the Laocoön was unearthed could not have been soulless. He tried to let Sangallo down kindly, but after so many faithful years, the rejection carried the sting of betrayal. Sangallo had been so confident of the appointment that he had made plans to move his family to Rome, and he felt “put to shame” by the pope.
    Sangallo returned to Florence an angry and bitter man, and Bramante began to build a new Rome.
    Â 
    Though often overlooked today, Donato di Pascuccio d’Antonio, known as Bramante, was the fourth giant of the High Renaissance—together with his nemesis Michelangelo, his protégé Raphael, and his friend Leonardo. Bramante was a maverick. No artistic ties bound him to a particular school. He was not a Lombard, or a Tuscan like Sangallo.
    In the self-portrait we have of Bramante, a fleshy lower lip juts from a shrewd, lined face. Small alert eyes appear ever vigilant. He was bald and ugly, a jovial, earthy man, a teacher, a mentor, an artful power player—and something of a surprise. How did he come so late in life and so unexpectedly to design St. Peter’s and claim the title preeminent architect of the High Renaissance?
    Although his early life is sketchy, there are a few clues. First, Bramante had the good fortune to be born in the duchy of Urbino, an enclave of Renaissance culture. Born to a farming family in 1444, two years before the death of Brunelleschi, he was named Donato—“the little gift.” After seven