r this facade of the Capitol not only one of
Michelangelo's best works, but also one of the best specimens of the
building of that period. Deduction must, of course, be made for
heaviness and improprieties of taste, which are not rare."

Next to these designs for the Capitol, the most important
architectural work of Michelangelo's old age was the plan he made of a
new church to be erected by the Florentines in Rome to the honour of
their patron, S. Giovanni. We find him writing to his nephew on the
15th of July 1559: "The Florentines are minded to erect a great
edifice--that is to say, their church; and all of them with one accord
put pressure on me to attend to this. I have answered that I am living
here by the Duke's permission for the fabric of S. Peter's, and that
unless he gives me leave, they can get nothing from me." The consul
and counsellors of the Florentine nation in Rome wrote upon this to
the Duke, who entered with enthusiasm into their scheme, not only
sending a favourable reply, but also communicating personally upon the
subject with Buonarroti. Three of Michelangelo's letters on the
subject to the Duke have been preserved. After giving a short history
of the project, and alluding to the fact that Leo X. began the church,
he says that the Florentines had appointed a building committee of
five men, at whose request he made several designs. One of these they
selected, and according to his own opinion it was the best. "This I
will have copied and drawn out more clearly than I have been able to
do it, on account of old age, and will send it to your Most
Illustrious Lordship." The drawings were executed and carried to
Florence by the hand of Tiberio Calcagni. Vasari, who has given a long
account of this design, says that Calcagni not only drew the plans,
but that he also completed a clay model of the whole church within the
space of two days, from which the Florentines caused a larger wooden
model to be constructed. Michelangelo must have been satisfied with
his conception, for he told the building-committee that "if they
carried it out, neither the Romans nor the Greeks ever erected so fine
an edifice in any of their temples. Words the like of which neither
before nor afterwards issued from his lips; for he was exceedingly
modest." Vasari, who had good opportunities for studying the model,
pronounced it to be "superior in beauty, richness and variety of
invention to any temple which was ever seen." The buildi