or whatever rancour he might feel against
Bramante personally, his genius bowed before that of the great
architect. He wrote in 1555 to Bartolommeo Ammanati, "It can not be
denied that in architecture Bramante was greater than any other man
since classic times. He conceived the first design for St. Peter's,
simple, clear and free from all confusion, and whoever like San Gallo
has turned aside from this plan has turned aside from the truth."

Before the disagreement over St. Peter's, Michelangelo had twice come
into sharp conflict with San Gallo over the fortifications of the Borgo
and the completion of the Farnese palace.

Paul III wished to reconstruct and complete the fortifications of Rome
which had been destroyed in 1527. San Gallo had been engaged on them
since 1534, but the work had only been actively pushed since 1542. In
February, 1545, meetings were held under the presidency of Pier Luigi
Farnese in the Castle of St. Angelo to discuss the subject of the
fortifications of the Borgo, and to these Michelangelo was summoned. He
expressed opinions absolutely opposed to those of San Gallo and
enumerated the faults already committed in the works. Hot words were
exchanged, and the pope was obliged to command both men to be silent.
Soon after this affair Michelangelo made a new design for the
fortifications involving the destruction of San Gallo's work, and this
was accepted.[87]

Michelangelo added to this defeat another more bitter still. San Gallo
had built the Farnese palace up to the second story, but his plans for
the third story and the cornice did not please the pope, who turned them
over to Michelangelo to be mercilessly criticised. A competition was
opened in 1546 for the cornice in which Perino del Vaga, Sebastiano del
Piombo, Vasari and Michelangelo took part. Michelangelo's design was
accepted, and when San Gallo died from this humiliation in October,
1546, the direction of the work on the palace passed at once into his
hands. Michelangelo set aside the original plan entirely and built the
third story on the court on the Corinthian order. He also built the
beautiful cornice, so broad and fine in conception, in which he had
possibly the assistance of Vignole or Guglielmo della Porta. Even San
Gallo's death did not disarm Michelangelo, who searched relentlessly for
the malpractices committed under his predecessor in the work on St.
Peter's and who raged against the guilty with a violence which Vasari
still