[Jeff Chandler]

I wonder if the great cathedrals of Europe were ever thought too modern, artificial, garish, an eye soar to the natural landscape of god's beauty, etc., by the inhabitants or visitors at the time they were built?

Not likely. Very few of them were designed by psychotic faggots.

[Pharmboy]

Now THAT'S funny (a bit tough, but funny).

[leilani]

Oops. I hate to burst your bubble, but the architect of the duomo at Basilica Santo Pietro not to mention the Medici Chapel & others, a certain Signor M. di Lodovico Buonarroti (better known perhaps by his first name Michelangelo), was absolutely, as some freepers like to put it, "a packer". As an architect, probably his main contribution is as the inventor/developer of the "giant order" of pilasters for his renovation/remodeling of the facade of the Campidoglio (Capitoline Hill in Rome), emulated by virtually every architect working in classicism since, including my personal fave Palladio!