ry has been briefly sketched, is the
largest in the world. As we now see it, it consists of a vast
vestibule; a nave of four bays with side aisles; a vast square central
space over which hangs the great dome; transepts and a choir, each of
one bay and an apse. Outside the great central space, an aisle, not
quite like the ordinary aisle of a church, exists, and there are two
side chapels. It can be well understood that if the largest church in
Christendom is divided into so few parts, these must be themselves of
colossal dimensions, and the truth is that the piers are masses of
masonry which can be called nothing else than vast, while the spaces
spanned by the arches and vaults are prodigious. There is little sense
of mystery about the interior of the building (Fig. 64), the eye soon
grasps it as a whole, and hours must be spent in it before an idea of
its gigantic size is at all taken in. The beauty of the colouring adds
wonderfully to the effect of St. Peter's upon the spectator, for the
walls are rich with mosaics and coloured marbles; and the interior,
the dome especially, with the drum upon which it rests, are decorated
in colour throughout, with fine effect and in excellent taste. The
interior is amply lighted, and, though very rich, not over decorated;
its design is simple and noble in the extreme, and all its parts are
wonderful in their harmony. The connection between the dome and the
rest of the building is admirable, and there is a sense of vast space
when the spectator stands under that soaring vault which belongs to
no other building in the world.

The exterior is disappointing as long as the building is seen in
front, for the facade is so lofty and advances so far forward as to
cut off the view of the lower part of the dome. To have an idea of the
building as Michelangelo designed it, it is necessary to go round to
the back; and then, with the height of the drum fully seen and the
contour of the dome, with all its massy lines of living force,
carrying the eye with them right up to the elegant lantern that crowns
the summit, some conception of the hugeness and the symmetry of this
mountain of art seems to dawn on the mind. But even here it is with
the utmost difficulty that one can apply any scale to the mass, so
that the idea which the mind forms of its bulk is continually
fluctuating.

The history of this building extends over all the period of developed
Renaissance in Rome, and its list of architects in