hed
almost simultaneously in many parts of Italy, Rome, Florence, Milan,
and Venice. First, it was the triumph of classical over medieval
models, and the suppression of Gothic. Then it was the outbreak of
modern painting, beyond all models, medieval or ancient, in a
generation of men remarkable for originality. Rome, which had adopted
the new learning under the impulse of Nicholas V, went over also to
the new art and became its metropolis. It was the ripest and most
brilliant work of the time, and it was employed to give expression to
religious ideas, and to decorate and exalt the dignity of the Papacy,
with its headquarters at the Vatican. The man who conceived how much
might be done by renascent art to give splendour to the Church at the
moment when its terrestrial limits were immeasurably extended, and its
political power newly established, was Julius II. In 1505 Emmanuel of
Portugal, inspired by the prodigies of that epoch of discovery, and by
the language of recent canonists, addressed him in these terms
"Receive, at last, the entire globe, thou who art our god."

Julius, who, by the energy of his will and his passion for posthumous
fame, was the true son of the Renaissance, asked Michael Angelo to
construct a monument worthy of a pontiff who should surpass all his
predecessors in glory. When the design proved too gigantic for any
existing Church, he commanded Bramante to pull down the Basilica of
Constantine, which for a thousand years had witnessed the dramatic
scenes of ecclesiastical history, the coronation of Charlemagne, the
enthronement of the dead Formosus, the arrest of Paschal, and to erect
in its place a new and glorified St. Peter's, far exceeding all the
churches of the universe in its dimensions, in beauty, in power over
the imagination of men. The ruthless destruction indicates the tone
of the new era. Old St. Peter's was not only a monument of history,
but a sepulchre of saints.

Julius was not inspired by the Middle Ages. Under him the Papacy was
preparing for a new career, less spiritual than what once had been,
more politic and secular and splendid, under new stars. He had
Bramante, Michael Angelo, Rafael, San Gallo, Peruzzi, a concentration
of artistic genius such as had never been, not produced by Rome
itself, but attracted from every quarter by the master of Rome. What
had been, one hundred years before, a neglected provincial town,
became the centre of European civilisation by t