Vasari, who was employed to finish the cupola, spoiled its effect by
raising it upon an ugly attic; it is probable that the church, as designed
by Vitoni, would have presented the appearance of a miniature Pantheon. At
Rome the influence of Bramante was propagated through Raphael, Giulio
Romano, and Baldassare Peruzzi. Raphael's claim to consideration as an
architect rests upon the Palazzi Vidoni and Pandolfini, the Cappella Chigi
in S. Maria del Popolo, and the Villa Madama. The last-named building,
executed by Giulio Romano after Raphael's design, is carried out in a
style so forcible as to make us fancy that the pupil had a larger share in
its creation than his teacher. These works, however, sink into
insignificance before the Palazzo del Te at Mantua, the masterpiece of
Giulio's genius. This most noble of Italian pleasure-houses remains to
show what the imagination of a poet-artist could recover from the
splendour of old Rome and adapt to the use of his own age. The vaults of
the Thermae of Titus, with their cameos of stucco and frescoed arabesques,
are here repeated on a scale and with an exuberance of invention that
surpass the model. Open loggie yield fair prospect over what were once
trim gardens; spacious halls, adorned with frescoes in the vehement and
gorgeous style of the Roman school, form a fit theatre for the grand
parade-life of an Italian prince. The whole is Pagan in its pride and
sensuality, its prodigality of strength and insolence of freedom. Having
seen this palace, we do not wonder that the fame of Giulio flew across the
Alps and lived upon the lips of Shakspere: for in his master-work at
Mantua he collected, as it were, and epitomised in one building all that
enthralled the fancy of the Northern nations when they thought of Italy.

A pendant to the Palazzo del Te is the Villa Farnesina, raised on the
banks of the Tiber by Baldassare Peruzzi for his fellow townsman Agostino
Chigi of Siena. It is an idyll placed beside a lyric ode, gentler and
quieter in style, yet full of grace, breathing the large and liberal