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0521551331 c 01 -p 3 a CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 10 : 18
258 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS CATALOGUE 54shows a segmentally pedimented interior window of the
same size as those in the wooden model. This drawing
waspresumably made to prepare a revision of the interior
windows of the drum model which, in the event, was
not undertaken because they were all constructed with
triangular pediments. It probably dates from c.155 9– 60 :
The recto of the larger of the two fragments (CB 124 A)
contains the most developed ground plan that survives
byMichelangelo’s own hand for the church of San Gio-
vanni dei Fiorentini, a plan datable between August and
December155 9– the compiler would opt for a later rather
than an earlier date within this span. It was probably at this
moment that Michelangelo divided the sheet in two. A
revised version of this plan for San Giovanni dei Fiorentini
was that selected for execution. Tiberio Calcagni made
afair copy of it generally identified with a drawing now
in the Uffizi (318 5A; pen and ink and grey wash over
black chalk and stylus work, 492 × 424 mm), which, if by
Calcagni (Fara, 1997 ,p. 24 ,gives it to an “anonimo del
primo Seicento”) would have been, in turn, the basis of
the lost wooden model for that building, also prepared by
Calcagni (see Cat. 105 ).
The wooden model for St. Peter’s is often silently
assumed to be homogeneous, but it is clear that the car-
penter completed the drum before he made the dome.
It is generally agreed that the dome, which now sur-
mounts the drum and has a steeply raised profile is the
product of a major alteration to the model made over
a decade-and-a-half after Michelangelo’s death, around
15 8 0, and that it deviates from his final intentions. Yet it
is clear that Michelangelo retained the option of an ele-
vated dome – similar to that in the model as it now exists
and to the dome as finally constructed – until a very
late stage. Two solutions are shown in his drawings: an
hemispherical, smooth dome in that in Lille, and an ele-
vated, ribbed dome in that in Haarlem. The hemispher-
ical smooth dome would have co-existed well both with
oculi in the drum and with the smooth attic penetrated
byDiocletian windows, which was originally intended
to run around the church, and which was actually con-
structed on its south arm. The decision to install vertically
orientated windows in the drum, probably taken in early
155 9, and to articulate the attic with coats-of-arms and
rectangular windows with shell-centred flat pediments,
separated by short grouped pilaster-strips – construction
of which was underway by c. 1563 – signals the aban-
donment of the “smooth” scheme and speaks strongly in
favour of Michelangelo’s intention, by the early15 6 0s, to
build a high-profile ribbed dome. This change is signalled
on Lille 107 , which contains a small sketch of the revised
attic zone. Although it does appear that his final choice –a compromise – was once again to lower the dome’s pro-
file, while retaining the ribs and the decorated attic, this
wasprobably not determined until very shortly before his
death. This is the solution shown in the large engraving
byEtienne Duperac, which, although published only in
15 6 8,was no doubt under preparation for several years
before then and which, in effect, constitutes Michelan-
gelo’s testament for St. Peter’s.
It is difficult to know how much weight to give to the
present drawing, but it is clearly not worked out in detail,
and it seems rather to be an impressionistic sketch. The
series of lines shows Michelangelo experimenting with
different curvatures: They make it clear that Michelan-
gelo had not decided upon the dome’s profile when they
were drawn. Indeed, even as late as early 1561 he was still
pondering the problem. A sketch in Florence (CB 84 A
recto/B 264 /Corpus 614 ;black chalk, 111 × 80 mm, sheet
cut down to the main image) for the central gate of the
Porta Pia contains an overdrawn fragmentary indication
of the inner and outer shells of the dome of St. Peter’s,
with a stairway on the inner one, as in the Lille sheet.
The drawing also raises another issue, that of the form
of the lantern. The rather simple profile suggests a lantern
of quite solid form, without a ring of columns and with-
out the elaborate relief of the final lantern. From this
drawing, it would seem to be little more than a cylin-
der topped by a broad-based, curved, cone. The cone
rests on a high cornice whose form is not indicated in
any detail, and this matches a protruding ring at the
base of the lantern, which rises fairly abruptly from the
dome. Rather crudely sketched, within the cylinder of
the lantern, is a rectangle which presumably indicates its
interior. But it provides very little information, and it is
not clear whether the interior of the lantern proper is
or is not continuous with the interior of the lower sec-
tion of the lantern, that part between the inner and outer
shells of the cupola. However, this lower part is clearly
open below. These observations raise a further question
connected with the dome of St. Peter’s. Was the lantern
planned to transmit light to the dome – as it does in the
dome as built – or was it to be simply a decorative fea-
ture, surmounting the dome but not directly connected
with it? In which case the dome would have been lit only
from the windows of the drum and would have received
no light from above. Michelangelo seems to have con-
sidered both possibilities. Both the Lille and the Haar-
lem drawings seem to envision a dome interior that does
not open to a lantern. In the present case, it is clear that
the lower compartment is open to the dome interior,
and that, therefore, it must have been intended to illumi-
nate it. This does not necessarily mean that the lower