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.