"It is impossible to deny that Bramante was as great in architecture as any man has been since the days of the ancients.

When he first laid the plan of S.Peter's, he made it not a mass of confusion, but clear and simple, well lighted, and so thoroughly detached that it in no way interfered with any portion of the palace."[50] Having thus pronounced himself in general for Bramante's scheme, Michael Angelo proceeded to develop it in accordance with his own canons of taste.

He retained the Greek cross; but the dome, as he conceived it, and the details designed for each section of the building, differed essentially from what the earlier master would have sanctioned.
Not the placid and pure taste of Bramante, but the masterful and fiery genius of Buonarroti, is responsible for the colossal scale of the subordinate parts and variously broken lineaments of the existing church.
In spite of all changes of direction, the fabric of S.Peter's had been steadily advancing.

Michael Angelo was, therefore, able to raise the central structure as far as the drum of the cupola before his death.

His plans and models were carefully preserved, and a special papal ordinance decreed that henceforth there should be no deviation from the scheme he had laid down.