It seemed as though in sweeping away the venerable traditions of eleven hundred years, and replacing Rome's time-honoured Mother-Church with an edifice bearing the brand-new stamp of hybrid neo-pagan architecture, the Popes had wished to signalise that rupture with the past and that atrophy of real religious life which marked the counter-reformation.
Julius II.

has been severely blamed for planning the entire reconstruction of his cathedral.

It must, however, be urged in his defence that the structure had already, in 1447, been pronounced insecure.

Nicholas V.ordered his architects, Bernardo Rossellini and Leo Battista Alberti, to prepare plans for its restoration.

It is, of course, impossible for us to say for certain whether the ancient fabric could have been preserved, or whether its dilapidation had gone so far as to involve destruction.