side;
Vignola's cold classic profiles and Palladio's resuscitation of old
Rome in the Palazzo della Ragione at Vicenza emerge upon the other. It
remained Buonarroti's greatest-glory that, lessoned by experience and
inspired for high creation by the vastness of the undertaking, he
imagined a world's wonder in the cupola of S. Peter's.

III

Writing in the mid-stream of this architectural regurgitation, Vasari
explains what contemporaries thought about Michelangelo's innovations.
"He wished to build the new sacristy upon the same lines as the older
one by Brunelleschi, but at the same time to clothe the edifice with a
different style of decoration. Accordingly, he invented for the
interior a composite adornment, of the newest and most varied manner
which antique and modern masters joined together could have used. The
novelty of his style consisted in those lovely cornices, capitals,
basements, doors, niches, and sepulchres which transcended all that
earlier builders, working by measurements, distribution of parts, and
rule, had previously effected, following Vitruvius and the ancient
relics. Such men were afraid to supplement tradition with original
invention. The license he introduced gave great courage to those who
studied his method, and emboldened them to follow on his path. Since
that time, new freaks of fancy have been seen, resembling the style of
arabesque and grotesque more than was consistent with tradition. For
this emancipation of the art, all craftsmen owe him an infinite and
everduring debt of gratitude, since he at one blow broke down the
bands and chains which barred the path they trod in common."

If I am right in thus interpreting an unusually incoherent passage of
Vasari's criticism, no words could express more clearly the advent of
Barocco mannerism. But Vasari proceeds to explain his meaning with
still greater precision. Afterwards he made a plainer demonstration
of his intention in the library of S. Lorenzo, by the splendid
distribution of the windows, the arrangement of the upper chamber, and
the marvellous entrance-hall into that enclosed building.

"The grace and charm of art were never seen more perfectly displayed
in the whole and in the parts of any edifice than here. I may refer in
particular to the corbels, the recesses for statues, and the cornices.
The staircase, too, deserves attention for its convenience, with the
eccentric breakage of its flights of steps; the whole construction
b