Suffice it to say that he began at once to work with diligence and accuracy at all points where the edifice required alteration; to the end that its main features might be fixed, and that no one might be able to change what he had planned." Vasari adds that this was the provision of a wise and prudent mind.

So it was; but it did not prevent Michelangelo's successors from defeating his intentions in almost every detail, except the general effect of the cupola.

This will appear in the sequel.
Antonio da Sangallo had controlled the building of S.Peter's for nearly thirty years before Michelangelo succeeded to his office.
During that long space of time he formed a body of architects and workmen who were attached to his person and interested in the execution of his plans.

There is good reason to believe that in Sangallo's days, as earlier in Bramante's, much money of the Church had been misappropriated by a gang of fraudulent and mutually indulgent craftsmen.

It was not to be expected that these people should tamely submit to the intruder who put their master's cherished model on the shelf, and set about, in his high-handed way, to refashion the whole building from the bottom to the top.