HISTORY OF PROVISION AND DIFFERENT SHAPES
What Christians have given to, their Temples, since the reign of Conflantin the big one up to us.
“The ancient Peoples who fe diftinguës particularly in Architecture.
  The Temples of the Egyptians in general will offer their plan as we may judge by the Employer of Pococke, Voyageur English, a large paralellogramedivifé in the interior by half bytes, or other paraleilogrames of different proportions. The ignorance in which they were in the manner of making arches, perhaps prevented them from making circular ones. More versed in this Art, but less enlightened than we women, the Greeks & the Romans did not make, if we except the Pantheon in Rome, very convincing round Temples . Attached with a respectful efpece to thefimple form & rectangular <ju'à imitation of their huts, they had given to the first temples they raised their deities; they endeavored to raise it, by all that Architecture can display of magnificen ce. They decorated the tallest of fujperbes colonnades internally & externally, they surrounded them with vaulted enclosures, adorned with periftiles: & L û the body of the Temple had neither a
, great extent, nor a great elevation, the exterior decoration, perfectly well linked with that of the interior, formed an admirable whole.
  Our most beautiful Eglifes, less fortunately difpofee in some respects, have, however, taken advantage of the beauties which these Temples did not have that the Payens pride themselves on having built. The square shapes & the circular shapes , used always prefers sparingly in the latter. are brought together with grace in our Bafïliques. We cover Nefs that have four twenty-foot of width, raise us to the center of the Domes meeting a more confiderable diamettre, and whose vaults feem touch the clouds: & enlighten us with infinite art, toutes.les parts of these. your buildings. Let’s see that we have come to this har ~ diefleof construction -, which we perhaps do not admire, and to which the Ancients never achieved. Let us see how this perfected construction born and embellished, can make our Eglifes fiipérieur to all the Temples which we raised before us."
  The table that we are going to offer, as soon as it changes the shape of our Eglifes to be tested, from the first $ built by Conftantin the Great, until that of Sainte Genevieve & de la Madeleine that we built in Paris for the protection of King, prefer only general & not very detailed descriptions. More extensive, they cut the chain that we want to follow, and did not tire the les yet, curious to know these mo fa numens thoroughly. A figure, however small it is better acquainted Foit & pluS promptly thedifpofition of a building, that the most clear difeours: this is what determined me to have engraved at the end of this Hiftoire, in chronological order, & more or less on the same scale, the flight of all the Temples of which I speak. The name engraved above the plan of each Building will save us the trouble of referring to it in the leak of this Book.
  FIRST ARTICLE.
From the difpojition of Churches , since their origin , jufqu to the renaiffance of Arts in Italy.
THE ease or the obstacles that the different Religions found to extend in their origin, the zeal with which of the Pufi Princes or of the whole Nations have embarrassed them, or the contradictions that they have experienced, appear to be the main reasons for difference we obferved between the capacity of inside high buildings in the true God, and that of the Tem ple confecrated to falfe Deities of Pagans.
The various Religions of the Peoples who / have shone by their knowledge in Architecture, establish themselves faintly & fans contradiction, in the end of floating States. The most folemnels sacrifices fefaifoient sometimes outdoors in front of the Temples , in the middle of Cities or outside of their walls to the dab view all the Inhabitants. He frequently fufEfoit the interior of these temples might contain Priests & images of deities that there were revered; & the Peoples who raised them, could, fans make them extremely flatter, decorate them externally with the greatest magnificence.
  The Christian Religion on the contrary, which had to triumph over all the others, perfected in its origin, does not at first fe show in broad daylight. Few men, like the Apostles, hafarderent their lives to publish the truth repoulfée by the strength and by the tortures. The first earth crazy hidden Christians in these gloomy catacombs they partook with the dead, there célébroientenfecretles mysteries of our Religion. Drawn by Conftantine the Great from these hideous retreats, they were assembled by this Emperor in some ofthese edifices, called Bafiliques by the Ancients, & where they resisted the Juftice. Sheltered in these splendid monuments, closed & well lit, (where they celebrated our Myfteres) infults that they could fear in the middle
place of a people who had perfected them for a long time; they must have sought to procure the same advantages in the first Temples which they confirmed. And as it was important that their capacity was not limited to containing the priests who disffervent them, so was that of most of the Temples of the Payens, but that they still had to be tall enough to contain all the Fideles who were in Rome; they found this advantage only in the immensity of the interior of the Bafiliques. They therefore imitated them in the form which they gave to their Church; & since they do not believe in having to change the name ofthese Buildings which had at first fervent them afyls, even if they do not cruff to have to define by a new name of the Temples which reflected fi perfectly by their difpofition, with these Bafiliques; they gave the name of it in the flight to the Eglifes which they built, and the most beautiful of those which one sees in Rome still carry it in preference.
Ve the first Church of Christians , oucte r old Bajilique of Saint Peter.
Between the different churches that the & Christians built according to the model of these Bafiliques where we returned the Juftice, the first was built in Rome the year 3 26 of our Era (1) by Conftantin the Great. This Eglife, dedicated to S. Peter, was fituated in the same place where Anaclete, Difciple of this Apostle, had erected to him as fa falls a Memory , small monument which, in the origin of the Chriftianifme, was sufficient to recall the piety of the Faithful, but which did not deserve the name of Eglife. This prince fufficiently firmly established in his empire to make little of cases ofwhat the Senate and those of these Subjects who fled from the Religion of the Gentiles thought , wanted thereby to give a striking proof of their zeal for the Re
  (1) See as this time it says who is in hiftorical Memories of the Dome of Sainr Pierre, Marquis of Poleny, p. 8,9 & 'o.where this Author seems very well to prove that Cardinal Baronius, Bonanny , Fontana & other Authors were wrong to fix the foundation of this Eglife at the year 314: between the various arguments that M . Marquis of Poleny employee, it builds with lots of vraifemblance as what it was the year 316 that Conftantine gave the strongest evidence of his commitment to Christianity.
Christian ligiofi. We laughed, not taking as a model in this building, the shape of the most fimished Bafiliques, (such as executed by the ancient Romans) which would prefer in their plan only a long square, divided in width by two rows of columns in three efpaces. To respond to the great views of Conftantin, We copied those that the increase of Romë had forced to increase confidently, & which offer a very-vafte & very-magnificent interior.
The ancient Church of Saint Peter was therefore divided in length, precisely like these last Buildings, by four rows of columns which formed five spheres of promenades. The largest which occupied the middle, made up the nave, the lower four, the lower sides. These Promenoirs, directed from the west to the east, were to end, at the bottom of the edifice, at a feconde nave tran £ Verfale, which stretched from noon to the south; & we have still seen open in that of the sides of this hefqui which was the most remote, a large circular niche which, with the two naves which cut perpendicularly, gave to the plan of this * Eglife, a formof imperfect crosses.
Such was the general difpofition of this first Temple of the Christians, impofant by its grandeur; it would have been one of the most fuperbs that one had seen, if the beauty of the decoration had responded to that of the materials from which it was formed. More than two hundred colomnes between lefquelles we obferved in twelve of marble from Candia, believed to have ferved the Temple of Solomon, oi> drown his interior; there were forty-eight in the two sides of the nave, and forty-four in the aisles; the ceiling which carried on the large walls (pierced with croifées) which they carved, was made up ofbeams covered with bronze which had been removed from the Temple of Jupiter Capirtolin.
  Conftantine who had ordered to conftraire the Bafilique of Saint Peter so of magnificence, while in Rome célébroit the twentieth year of his reign, although she was a defira autentique testimony of what had led to his conversion. He wanted his plan to represent a cross, in honor of that wonderful cross he saw in the air when he defeated Maxence. The happy idea that this Prince had, ofca-ra & errifer our Eglifes, by giving them a form revered by Christians, although badly executed at first, as we have said, was not however infu & ueufe. Some ages after we Fexprima more perfectly, and the efforts they made to get there, and to give the Sanctuaries of our Churches & raising the dignity they should have, produifirent first effais of Sentiment 's bigger than have had the Moderns in Architecture, that of blasting up in the air the huge arcs of their naves with domes or round Temples that were as large as the largest of those that the Ancients executed.
From the invention of the Domes which cover the S directory of the Church.
  " The Siege of the Roman Empire having" been transferred to Conftantinople, there p. "Place to presume that the difpofition of " the old faint Pierre, esteemed then the "most beautiful church in the world, was imitated"> in that which Conftantin had raised v> in the new capital, for the "name of saint Sophie . This last
"Not fubfifta long time Conftantius} ^ w son of Conftantine, made rebuild a new" who felt most unfortunate " accidents; partially destroyed, and repa " SOE crazy Arca4ius the Empire, it was"> still burning mad Honorius & Reta "lished by the young Theodosius; but finally, a furious federation having risen from the time of Juftinien, it was reduced to ashes. This emperor having appaifé " the sedition, and wanting to immortalize"> his name by the buildings he erected "in Europe, Afia in feveral" places of Africa, sent to all "the most celebrated architects share.
  "Anthemius of Thralles, & Ifidore"> of Miletus, seemed to rage all over; »Others in capacity; they conceived the "defign of conftruire a Temple" furpaffât of many in all greatness "those who had been made, and refolved" rent to are developed use of wood, "in order to put safe from fire," As they had the hardiefle of holding an unknown structure until then, they wiped out, as well as all the "Inventors, from the railways; many accidents occurred in their building which they did not have. »See not planned; but finally they had
»Take up the glory of completing it, & fa dif
»Pofition was found to be beautiful, that it was
»Approved & imitated since by
»Most enlightened nations ? & by
The most barbaric peoples of Europe.
"Indeed, when one enters the interior
" Laughing of blessed Sophie, we hit EFT
»Of admiration for the greatness and the
"Beauty of his enfemble; & we are little
Furious that Juftinien fe glorified so many
» Having raised her, he exclaimed in a tranf
"Port of joy: Jet have furpajfé, Solomon!
  " Some praise however that
"Deserves holy Sophie, by the discovery
»Green made of this vault will go
»Menfe raised in the center of the cross
"Which it forms, & whose plan circu
»The area that bears the square plan of the
»Part below the dome, was bought
  »At the corners of the square, & screwed up by
  »Pendants (i), we are however
  »Forced to recognize that there are
(i) pendant, a term of art, we could not avoid to repeat frequently, fignifies the party who is between the arches of the nave of the croifée a Eg'ife, and that advance to receive the circular entablature which crowns these arches. At the Invalides * on these pendants, we see the four Fathers of the Eglife that we paint on them. It is according to the observations I made in Conftandius during this Mofque, that I speak in the affirmative of my conftruion.
"The islands in which the Princes, some grown up " they believe, some outfits which they "bend, can only produce" imperfect works. The monument "of which we speak is a striking example", all the details of my architecture are very defective. "
  The Arts already fallen for the first Christian Emperor, to the perfection where they had reached their fool Pre-Deceivers, degenerated again during the space of time which passed between his Reign and that of Juftinien. They fell a few fiecles afterwards in such barbarity that the Venetians who copied with fez of fageffe in S. Marc, which the difpofition of holy Sophie had of happiness, could not therefore defend themselves from imitating the bad taste which reigned in interior decoration. So wouldn't we talk about faint Marc fans the lights that scattering can spread as the history of that ofTemples. The Eglife which today bears this name in Venife is not the one that was raised in this Tan City 829. In the general upheaval which led the Venetians to mafracrer Candiano & my son in 976, she was consumed by flames deVfp * rerent the Palace of the Doge precifely destroyed in the same way as was I saw was the one that had been brought first to Constantinople under the name of holy Sophia. Urféolo I er who made reeonftruire new to the costs, penfa perhaps theput as the monument which Juftinienfe glonfioit the most, safe from fire. ConftantinOpIe, of which all the Buildings hardly appear to us preferable to preferable to the works of Gots, then gave in the Arts of Loix to Europe. Urféolo made in this City a Table of Goldsmithery of an extraordinary richfle, & of a marvelous work, which he gave to fervent of ornament to the principal Altar of faint Marc * The Greek Architects were fi famous in Italy in these fiecles unenlightened, at the beginning of the eleventh, confequently bit of time after the . Bufquetto da Dalichio , to make him build the Cathedral Cathedral or the Dome of this City. Finally the refTemblancd that we see between these two Buildings ,
  B
. proves in an incontestable way, that faint Marc was copied in parts after faintê Sophie; if the shape of the cross was not well expressed in the plan of the latter, it was much better when Anthenius had finished it, & the architect who built faint Marc, was perhaps intrusted with the accident which caused him to lose his original difpofition. Now when one fuppoferer that it had not been, nothing prevented, by conferving all the difpofition of the middle of holy Sophie, to give to Fon Eglife this form, by opening four crazy naves the four arches of the middle, & by their giving the report oflength that must be between them the different arms of a well proportioned Greek cross as he did, The Eglife of faint Mark therefore has the advantage of being the first in Italy to have been constructed with pendants who care about the middle vault, to prefer much better in the background the shape of the cross, than we had done before, to have had the first over the five domes that cover the center of this Eglife & the different arms of fa cross of double
These, whose vaults make a pleasant efïef in the interior of the Eglife, & prefer on the outside the aspect of domes of a form higher than that which gave them the Ancients, & almost femblable to that what the Moderns give them; finally to offer even the idea that has been imitated since in faint Peter of Rome, to have the great Dome accompanied by an Eglifepar by smaller & lower domes i in order to give them a piramidal effect.
ARTICLE IT
From there difpôjition the Temples of chre want , since the time when the arts com mencerent to revive in Italy , ju FQUA there end the Siecle de Louis XIV.
All the Arts had the same strength as the I i Letters, the works of the most beautiful works were prepared by the obfuscate and painful works of the works which preceded them. Heureufes of ideas connected with the most bifarres ideas, traits of unsung genius when few apper CUS in time of barbarism, raffemblés afterwards by of great men have produced heads-d'ceuvres we admire, and that we are too perhaps forgetting the fource where the Authors, to whom we owe them, has stolen. Italy offers us in the progress made by Architecture when Atts began to be reborn, an image ofwhich has happened in general in all human knowledge ”She prepared with ingenious twists in the fifteenth fiecle, the admirable form that was given in that of Leon X to the largest building in the world. If Our Lady of the Flowers, begun in Florence in the Gothic taste, had not been completed by the beautiful dome the covers , li we had not worn a confirait Rome Dome as pendants to the little Church too little known to the Auguftins, faint Peter of Rome would perhaps have a very different form from that which we see with him.
  This was the point of taken it to Constantinople by Mohammed, the year 1453 arrived, which forced the great men of fortir of this City, the Italians prepared to resume the preeminence quilsavoient had in Arts crazy the first emperors; they last this first movement to their shrill genius. Burnelefchi Florentin, from the year 1407, revealed to them all the beauties that an exquisite taste & a deep study had made him discover in the ruins they trampled underfoot, & in the precious monuments of Antiquity that adorned Rome. We tried in the beginning of the fifteenth fiecle ofdecipher Vitruvius, this unique and precious work that reflects us from the Ancients, as far as Architecture; & The proportions heureufes ancient buildings & of their parts, were expofed to light before the end of that age (1). The immense dome which was made in Florence to cover the San & uary of the Church of Saint Mary of Flowers, was the first, and one of the most striking epochs of this happy change. In addition to this, worthy of being among the number of these daring entrepreneurs who do honor to the human endeavor, does it seem to us that we should bring back the story here.
  (1) Leon-Baptifte Alberti had published, before the end of the fifteenth fiecle, fes ten Books of Architecture.
J) u development of Domes of our Churches,
Sainte Marie des Fleurs, started in the Gothic style by Arnolphe Lapi, had to be finished for the direction of this Archite & e, when death laiffa les Florentins dans le grand embaçras, to finish the main vault, which was to expand all those that the Moderns had had to do until then. The execution of projects propofed by different architects for the con £ destroy, was fo complicated, they were reject. Burnelefchi the year 1407, quijok gnoit a genius fertile, deep cannoiffance of conftru & ion of Temples ancient of Rome, to returnfrom this last City to Florence, the fatherland, was responsible for making deltins & models to cover the Dome, U took a route oppopted to that which I have seen followed by the other Architects who had worked on this matter before; him, that it happened to him what he had planned \ } the simplicity of his project made it seem like the impoffible execution. 11 returned so quietly resume his studies in Rome, persuaded the Florentines the rappelleroient, and that we would offer them anything of better than what he had propofed. What Burnelefchi had planned happened ten years later, he was recalled to Florence. There expofa everythingof Sainte Marie in a fashionable & little dnpendieufe. As he joined a higher soul to fuperior talents, he gave an opinion which might have been injurious to anyone other than himself, but which turned to glory. He confessed to calling Florence the most famous Architects of Europe. We soon recognized how much he was superior to them. In a general assembly where they found themselves, in the year 1420, they developed their various projects for the construction of the cupola of Saint Mary, all of which provided a huge framework, as we were in use to use then. Burnelefchi confirmed, propofed to very confiderably reduce, or ineven remove this frame. In a proportion that is extraordinary and bold, all of his competitors judged him as
mediocre people usually judge men of genius ; they looked at him like crazy. He was not discouraged; but recognizing how difficult it was to perfuade a large number of men in tumultuous gatherings, he particularly enlivened all the persons charged with presiding over the confederation of Saint Mary ; & speaking to them with this force & this fagacity which one seldom finds in those who propof ill-concerted projects, he perfuada them. In a general assembly which they fled, they charged him withcover it. Dome, however in forcing the affocierà his work an architect named Giberti, a man whose skilful artifice alfez, he fi easily acquainted disability, he refta alone responsible for the book, and he finished with the biggest success, *
  The hardiefle that Burnelefchi had had, of constructing in a new, folid, and little different way, the Dome of Saint Mary of Flowers, which was the object of the astonishment of Italy, Se l ' ornament of Florence, excited the emula- tio.n ç \ e Rome; Nicolas "Y% elected Pope the year f447> seeing that the Bafîlique of the old faint Pierre began to ruin it, meditated the project to raise a new one, more vafte than that of Conftan * tin (i). Bernard RofTellini was tasked with making it the deflein, & the Sovereign Pontiff also hired LeonBaptifte Alberti to work there,deep connoiflances a great taste for Architecture. The defenses of RofTellini were approved, the Pope had the part of the bedside of the new Eglife begin , & had the Temple which had been built by Brobus, Prefect of Rome, adorned in the Tribune of the Elder , demolished for this purpose .
This book already raised the height of about five feet from the ground defïus of heated, was abandoned by the death of Nicolas V; & we can look at it as a real loss for the Arts, that of the designs of RofTellini whose execution we had started. If they were us
  (i) Some Authors have written that it was Antoine Koiïellini who had been entrusted with this work> but it is clear that it was Bernard, as Bonannï proves in his Hiftoire de faint Pierre, chap. 11 »pag. 63. Bernardus snag , he said> of quo Marxllus lo ~ qttjtur, made Roffellinas , (? Ç.
Once there, perhaps we would see the germ of the ideas that we notice in some of the projects that were made madly run away Julius II. A monument alone, efcaped by his small extent to the remarks of the curious who reviewed Rome, or who wrote of his buildings, we show that the Romans tried after the death of Nicolas V of fe spawn a new road in the Art of covering the Shrine of the Church. Of the perfection that the Florentines had given to their domes, there was only one step to take to imagine the domes worn on the arches oftheir naves; the Romans did. We are going to fix the epoch of a happy invention, which has had so much influence on the distribution of the most beautiful buildings that have been built since.
From the invention of the Domes of modern Churchmen ,
  The Building where the first dome was executed, not efl: not important by his greatness, as we have said, fince Tis the small Church of Auguftins fituated in Rome at the Piazza Navona. It cannot even be placed among the beautiful monuments of Italy, the interior decoration still holding a touch of gothic style ; but the place which it occupies, in the chain of ideas by which men have blundered before arriving at the perfection of the middle part ofour Church, however, makes it very interesting, and this is what determined me to take general measures when I padded in Rome, on my return from Greece. Indeed, if we already had in Conftantinople & in Venife had arches worn on the arches of the naves, & on the pendants which unify them, fi Burnelefchi had perfected in Florence the distribution of these arches, by constructing those of Saint Mary , we however, had not yet had the boldness to raise a tower of compleat dome as the four arches of the nave, and upon the pen * dants that unify them: 'Tis the Auguflins kRome that this great penetration was' executed the first time.
  The dome of the Church, the first of this kind ever conftructed, & k who the little experience we had then did not allow perhaps not to give all the folidité'néceffaire, was destroyed, because 'it has threatened ruin since my return from Italy, & has only been around for 380 years; the architect who built it had had great difficulty in building to overcome; the diameter was not very large, the pillars which foutenient it were therefore very little confidable. The Registration (1) which is on the frontifoice of the church, which he couvroit Sanctuary, shows that it was crazy conftruite Pope Sixtus IV, fince mark William of Eftouteville the erected the a.n 1483, about 60 years after the building of the cupola of Saint Marie des Fleurs was entrusted to Burnelefchi, & twenty years before Jules IL had plans made to rebuild Saint Pierre. Fo we see in his disposition, or in his decoration, which the architect who built appears to have imitated of blessed Mary, and which ferved to model the designers who worked on holy Pierre. We notice in particular that it has over the vault ofdome eight
Croifées in ceils of oxen précifëraent as those that are in-deflbus the vault of blessed Mary; & Non-feulement the Cylindrical part in which these croifées are open, form a tower of compleat dome high as four arches of the naves & pendants which the uniffent, as in 1 the round dome of saint Peter; but even the pendants of the Eglife of the Auguftins, are decorated in the interior with round medallions, as we note in those of the first ofthese churches, & my plan forms a very regular Latin cross, a peculiarity that we still see in this famafe Bafilique, & in various projects that have been made of it.
We are very far from claiming by these remarks to diminish the glory of the great men to whom we owe the most magnificent Eglife in the world; it took fans doubt the most favorable research, & the greatest hardiefTe, to execute in an auffi vafte building, the idea that offers a very-small monument: but finally this idea was not imagined by the Architects of the seventeenth century , as was believed for a long time, it was only developed and embellished by the means that we are going to show.
The development of domes that cover lecentre the most beautiful Churches modern.
Julius II, who arrived at the Pontificate in 1503, undertook to have the new Eglife of St. Peter built, with that ardor which prefers the rework of the greatest projects. One can believe what efforts then made for famous architects that the fortune seemed to have ra £ femblés express to Rome to difpute among them immortality aflurée would do to that responsible for carrying out the famous Temple Bramante was the glory of triomphéf of all these Concurrens, my plan was shocked. It is indeed of an incredible beauty and magnificence. TheThe Latin cross that the interior prefers is very well-defined, never has any monument been finished, the main nave was of a good proportion, and the decoration which finished the bottom of the three other naves, made up of isolated columns which form periftyles, & placed between maflifs, must produce * by the variety which they can repaiidrë
various accidents of light, a very happy effect. The interior of the Pantheon monument seems the only one who has perhaps given the Sentiment Bramante; he was so fond of this Temple, that he planned to build a whole that could be joined to the meeting of the four naves of Fon Eglife of Saint Peter; & Indeed his dome, which can be seen in the defigns Bonanni, had the same width in the interior than the Pantheon, the fort of cap which had couronnoit bleachers to its birth, and approximately the same shape as that of the Pantheon: we can confirm that my plan is made up ofeight maffifs, between each of which there are two columns which form three paffages, as there are in the interior of the Pantheon, we will recognize how there is analogy between these two monuments. It was therefore Bramante who had the idea of putting the Pantheon over the Temple of Peace, & not Michel Ange, to whom we attribute this thought (i).
  (i) The lack of connoiflances we had the His tory of holy Peter of Rome, which detailed EFT
Binds in confidable & little-read works, to say to M. de Montefquieu, in Fon Eflai fur le Goût , that Michelangelo imagined to be fucked up
  The execution of the faferbe Bafiliquè by iàint Pierre, where the greatest Architeâe of Italy, at the beginning of the feizié- ^ mefiécle, had endeavored 'to unite all that he had found ingenious in modern Eglifes , that the archite & ure amic offered him to nobler, was begun in the year 1506. Julius II. in pofa the first stone with the grahde pump on April 18 of this year, about d 180 years after the foundation of the old Bafilique by Conftantin the Great. We would, after the praise that we have to do engineeringof the Architect who gave the plan, being able to draw
In the air a temple larger than the Pantheon> while this thought had been imagined by Bramante forty years before Michelangelo worked at Saint Peter in Rome. The lack of a short of our Buildings , made an error of the same nature to M. de Voltaire; it is annoying that these verses which do so much honor to humanity,
 the voice of Colbert , Bernini came to Rome t 
From Perrault in the Louvre he admired your hand , & c.
do not contain a truth. C'eft Serlio "who came to the way of François Premier in Paris, will lend the deiTein that the Abbé de Clagni had made for the Cour du Louvre, to the one he had given , & had the greatness of soul to confèiller to execute it. This anecdote remainder was not difficult to discover t fince EFT in the Dictionary of Trévoux year inot Louvfe *
veiled as the mistakes that he échaperenr he founded this Church so of precipitation fo bit of hay, having vaulted the four arches that were to carry the dome, they were opened in different places confiderably bit of time after his death, that does not preceded by many one of Julius II. This defect confidably delayed the construction of the Church offaint stone. As soon as Leon X. had arrived at the Pontificate, he thought of having the most prompt and the safest remedies brought there. He instructed Giocondo, Raphaël d'Urbin & Julien Sangalo to work on it, and they carried it out with such intelligence that they succeeded in strengthening the foundations of this Eglife, & that all the fears that we had fur fa solidity, This difliperent.
  These three Architects having all died since the year 1517, until 1520, the work was fufpendu. Antoine Sangalo, already employed in the Bafilique, from the start of his uncle to Florence, where he had retired, and during the last year of the pontificate of Leo X, had the general direction of the building, he still preferved crazy Adrien IV & Clément
& we gave him for AssistantBalthazar de Peruze, Architect of great capacity. In the new plan engraved in Bonanni, put the name of the latter, which was not executed, but which would have been mad of the Popes auffi zealous for the advancement of this Eglife as Julius II & LeonX; in this plan, I say, that to see crazy conftruire their orders, they had reduced it to Bramante to a Greek Cross, or rather they had not done that shorten the nave, and the end with Colonades as were the other three naves in the project of Bramante. They also didthe general distribution of this Building.
Under the Pontificate of Paul III, Sangalo, refuted feul, made in a three - dimensional plan that he proposed from Bafilique, & which was accepted, changes that were more reliable, but disadvantageous. Inside he preserved the form of the Greek Cross, which he had given him in concert with Balthazar de Peruze, but he still grumbled the pillars of the dome. It fupprima wrong to regard the Colonades that terminoient the bottom of all the ships, and put before reaching that of the entrance, a por "tail with very high towers, different Veftibules, and a fpecies of dome from where you enter through a door inthe first nave.
  These last works by Sangalo were useless, which gave a lot of space to the Building externally, fans increased the capacity of the interior, were decorated with a very bad taste, and in a very small way.
  Happily for the Bafilique de faint Pierre & for the Arts, Michel Ange was in charge of presiding over his construction. This great man called from Florence to Rome by Paul III in 1646, after the death of Sangalo, tried to restore to this building the majestic decoration that Bramante had given him, and that Sangalo had made him lose. In a letter (1) he wrote to one of his friends, he shows as much esteem for the first, that of contempt for San
  (1) See on this subject the Letter of Michel Ange to. tin of friends ? buried in Bofnanni, Chap. XIV ". Pag. 75. which began: Mejf r Bartolomeoamico caro. E non fi pub negare , che Brantôme non fufj'e va * slowly nll ' Architetiure , quanta ogn , alno , che fia ftzto àegli antichi in qua , & c,
galo. We can judge with what difHn6Kon was received in Rome by a Pontiff who was to honor great men, Michelangelo, who, with the highest reputation, joined the greatest deflection. He confidently refused to receive the penfion annexed to the Architects who had the furintendance of faint Peter, & he was rewarded by the whole confidence of the Pope, who laifla him the master to order abolutely at the will of all that concerned this Bafilique.
Michelangelo did not méfufa the freedom that Paul III. had given it to him: master to increase the extent of the Bafilicus, he thought on the contrary, in order to enter into the views of the Pope who defied to finish it, to referrer the limits, he lailTa inside the form of Greek cross that Sangalo & Balthazar de Peruze had given him; but he declined the outer extent it had in the model of Sangalo, of all that was alien to the four aisles, and the large square which tournoit around the four pillars of the dome. Necessary to believe that he has made little ofchanges to the interior decoration of the naves, made up of large pilasters between which make two niches, one lower, the other fupérieur, since it is obfuscated in the model of Sangalo that we see in Rome, & in the bowls engraved with fon proj and; but Michelangelo gave the order that decorates this DPME within, more elevation than had given him Sangalo, and less of height to the vault that was to carry.
  With regard to the exterior of this building, we owe to Michel Ange the beautiful decoration which adorns it with preference, except that of the facade; the portal which he had imagined, much higher than that which was executed, was made up of fourteen ifolated columns very colloflales, & would have thereby produced an impofante and majestic decoration. Michel Ange also greatly enhanced the decoration of the dome tower, and instead of Sangalo employing two orders which became very small, and crowning thedome with a lantern too large, he only decorated it as Bramante had done, only in order outside, but he difpofa much better for the solidity, & traced thus for the shape of the dome a more elegant curve than the one given to him
the Architects who preceded it; curve to the truth, Jacques Fontana & the door that covered the dome crazy Sixtus V raised a fixth of more than the height IVfichel angel had given him. Finally, as the latter Architect had lived a great deal in Florence, where he had always been crazy about the Eglife of Saint Mary of the Flowers, he imitated the way in which these two vaults, one interior, the other exterior, are difpofee. Because Maderne which finished this Bafilique, did nothing but return to him the form of Latin Cross which Bramante had originally given him.
  . It is therefore with great pleasure that we look at Michel Ange as the Architect who contributed the most to the perfection of faint Pierre, although he only had the direction for ten-seventy years , which he did 'only began to work there at the age of j% , 8c 40 years after Bramante had laid the foundations; i'Kiftoire but we have to give, afîez shows that neither the general disposition of the Building or the idea of raising the dome as the arches of the nave can be attributed to him, although he executed this fuccefsfully
idea, the merit of the Artifte who perfects, being of a different nature than that of the man of genius who invented.
We will add here only a word for other parts of this Edifice which relate to fa difpofition; anyone the connoifTent fçavent that his four aisles form enfemble trèsréguliere a Latin cross, and much better than deffinée qu'offroient all Churches built before; the proportion of the size of the dome in relation to the extent of the naves is very beautiful; the sections which make pendants in the plan above, make a perfection which the Auguftins' Church did not have; the quarré which turns around the four maflifs which foutants the pendants, & at the angles of which make four small domes, is well open in the naves, & of a very-beautiful proportion with it:width as for the height, perhaps would do it in defire that the lower sides of the nave, which are illuminated by six small domes oval, fufTent wider ; their breakthrough was continued further on, and was not limited as it was by two of the four maflifs who ruined the dome.
  The general difpofition of the dome of an Eglife, with its naves and its low sides, could therefore still receive some perfection, or at least be varied by the manner of decorating or opening the sides which make pendants below; it was achieved in two Eglifes at the end of the (century of Louis XIV , but it is necessary to leave Italy to find these monuments ; it is necessary to examine in England & in France Saint Paul of London & the Eglife of the Invalides,
From Percé very ingenious of low - quoted a Church in the sides of the dome that was practiced at St. Paul of Lon dres , & of that of another fort that has made the Invalides , fo that of the manner ingenious which the parts of thecupola make lighted.
  Chevalier Wren, Member of the " Royal Society of London," and before he was counted among the first Geometers of Europe, in the time of the Neutons, Leibnitz & Huyghens, felt the last drawback of the Aisles of Saint Pierre, that we 4t ,.,
have reported, & avoided it in the magnificent Temple of S. Paul started in year 167 5: the ancient Eglife of this name having been enveloped in the fatal fire which Eleven years previously destroyed part of this foolish City, he made the four sides of the domed dome, which make pendants below, preferring auffi as large as those which respond to the opening of the naves, he formed in each maffif of pendants a niche as in Saint Peter of Rome, but he opened these niches, and made an escort that they are puffed up by the eight aisles which accompany the four naves of this Cathedral.
This difpofition is certainly a stroke of genius on the part of the English Architefte, but he refuls that the naves in general appear too small compared to the immense expanse of the dome; & all those who have some taste & who have seen this monument, report that the choir in particular seems extremely narrow; besides, it was enough to confide its defenses to recognize that its form was not nearly as beautiful as that of Saint Peter of Rome; the cross is badly expressed in the plan, & although there are many chofes, to defire in the portal of thefirst, it has only one order, and it is thus composed in a more noble manner than that of Saint Paul of London which has two. In fact, these two monuments were both built in brick & clad in stone, the stone being so rare in London, that we were obliged to draw from the Ifles of Portland that which was used at Saint Paul; but the history of their confru & ion differs in this, that the Archbishop of the Church of Saint Paul had the glory of beginning it and ofto finish as he had first designed it, in the space of about forty years, and that more than ten Architects worked and changed, go considerably to Saint Peter of Rome, the first difpofitioii imagined by Bramante.
  The reffources, to add some perfections to the middle part of the largest Eglifes, bloom in some exhausted, when Jules - Hardouin Manfart, commissioned by Louis XIV to make a Rotunda at the Invalides, during the time that we hear Saint Paul at London, showed how fruitful his genius was ; limited to adding a dome to a nave already made & very-narrow, he could not imagine a set as large as it would have been if he had given the design of a Cathedral, but he inclined to embellish the part of the pendants which had seemed too neglected before him; he opened the mafifs of pendants in the middle, and had them pierced in four very decorated chapels;two columns; rappelja it down some stairs the beautiful circular shape of his dome, and difpofed his dome of way as when fe place at its center, it has a most magnificent fpectacle that give puifle Architecture. Even this research can even give the admirable paintings that adorn the ceiling of the dome all the radiance they could receive (i). Before him
  (i) he is escaped any thing to Manfart, that is of not having taken fo of precaution to put the paintings that were to be made upon the ceiling, out of accidents they pouvoient experience; the vault of this ceiling is very weak, and the least accident happens while working on the frame, or the defects of the roofing which could damage them. Mr. Contant will remedy this drawback, jealous of preserving paintings that he sees and of which he never speaks except with admiration,
paintings, as in Val-de-Grace , were only lit by crisscrosses pierced in the dome tower. Manfart, at the dome of the Invalides, made, like that of Saint Peter of Rome, a double cap; but instead of finishing them both with the lantern 3 he opened the most baffle, he painted the ceiling of the highest, & lit it with open croifs in an attic, & whose day penetrating between the two caps , strikes fur the upper vault, fans that the spectators who make below can perceive these croifées & discover thecaufe which gives a great sparkle to the admirable paintings with which the cupola is adorned.
We showed how much he himfelf up for ages before the Christian parvinflent to perfect the shape of the Churches that have domes. A new material will be offered to our research , we will see the columns used first in the first Temples of Christians with little art, & abandoned fleeing, reappeared in those that
it will make rauflfe make a vault in the timbers that will cover one where are the paintings, and the guarantee fo a long time that the building fubfilleia.
we elevate, & be executed there with all the purity of Greek Architecture ; we will see them applied to the form of a perfected cross, to show themselves united with these beautiful and bold vaults imagined to cover the fan & uary of these buildings; & finally prefect it, & by their great elevation, & by forming all the general divifions of their plan.
  The success of the faceted buildings composed as this new fyfteme, depends almost entirely on the happy or unpleasant effect that the colonnades will have in their interior. So before to talk about the way in which they are difpofed there, we think it prefenting the reader some thoughts, as the caufe of the pleasure they give us, fo that in périftyles-General, in the monuments where the employees.