ht and genial thing
of beauty aloft into the air, as did the modest builder of the
staircase to the hall at Christ Church, Oxford! The eye of the vulgar
is entranced, the eye of the artist bewildered. That the imagination
which inspired that decorative scheme was powerful, original, and
noble, will not be denied; but this does not save us from the
desolating conviction that the scheme itself is a specious and
pretentious mask, devised to hide a hideous waste of bricks and
mortar.

Michelangelo's imagination, displayed in this distressing piece of
work, was indeed so masterful that, as Vasari says, a new delightful
style in architecture seemed to be revealed by it. A new way of
clothing surfaces, falsifying facades, and dealing picturesquely with
the lifeless element of Vitruvian tradition had been demonstrated by
the genius of one who was a mighty amateur in building. In other
words, the _Barocco_ manner had begun; the path was opened to prank,
caprice, and license. It required the finer tact and taste of a
Palladio to rectify the false line here initiated, and to bring the
world back to a sense of seriousness in its effort to deal
constructively and rationally with the pseudo-classic mannerism.

The qualities of wilfulness and amateurishness and seeking after
picturesque effect, upon which I am now insisting, spoiled
Michelangelo's work as architect, until he was forced by circumstance,
and after long practical experience, to confront a problem of pure
mathematical construction. In the cupola of S. Peter's he rose to the
stern requirements of his task. There we find no evasion of the
builder's duty by mere surface-decoration, no subordination of the
edifice to plastic or pictorial uses. Such side-issues were excluded
by the very nature of the theme. An immortal poem resulted, an aerial
lyric of melodious curves and solemn harmonies, a thought combining
grace and audacity translated into stone uplifted to the skies. After
being cabined in the vestibule to the Laurentian Library, our soul
escapes with gladness to those airy spaces of the dome, that great
cloud on the verge of the Campagna, and feels thankful that we can
take our leave of Michelangelo as architect elsewhere.

VI

While seeking to characterise what proved pernicious to contemporaries
in Michelangelo's work as architect, I have been led to concentrate
attention upon the Library at S. Lorenzo. This was logical; for, as we
have seen, Vasari regarded t