Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/176

186 rosaries, crosses, and small pictures of saints which were to be blessed by the Pope.

I then went into St. Peter's Church, which was at this hour illumined in the most exquisite manner by the setting sun, the light of which streamed in through the fire-tinted windows of the chancel. I met the German Count Bruner, who agreed with me that this church is a pontifical rather than a Christian temple; because, throughout the whole place, that which is reflected there is the power and the glory of the Popedom and the Popes. The magnificent cupola itself resembles an immense papal tiara, arched above the tomb of St. Peter.

This cupola is the last great work of Michael Angelo, and is a beautiful monument, not alone of his genius, but also of his elevated character of mind. He undertook the direction of this work in his old age and at the earnest desire of Pope Leo X. He executed it under much opposition and amidst the enmity of envious artists, and under many kinds of difficulties and troubles, as is shown by his private letters. He wished by this cupola, as he says, “to place a Pantheon on the top of St. Peter's,” to make the greatest heathen temple of Rome (the Pantheon di Agrippa) an ornament for the Christian church; he wished by doing this, “to erect a temple, which should, at a great distance, announce to strangers and pilgrims that they approached Rome, the residence of the Christian religion!”

The Pope offered him one hundred ducats a month as director of this gigantic work, but Michael Angelo rejected the offered reward, and wished for nothing