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king, on his restoration," observes Mr. Elmes, with great simplicity," to have discharged Denham, and unsafe to have intrusted him with the execution of any great work." Few men, it must be admitted, could so ill afford to add to the list of their acts of ingratitude towards their followers and dependants as Charles: Denham remained surveyor with the salary, Wren was appointed his deputy,—and performed all the duties of the office. Although appointed, he held the place for some time before he received any important public employment; and the Infanta of Portugal having brought the expensive dowry of Tangier, it was proposed to Wren, on account of his knowledge in geometry, to proceed there to survey and direct the works at the mole, harbour, and fortifications: this, however, he wisely declined.

During his progress in making plans for the repair of the Cathedral, the state and condition of which he appears very minutely to have ascertained, he was employed to give a design for the erection of the new theatre (Sheldonian) at Oxford, the principal merit of which is in the scientific construction of the flat roof, which is 80 by 70 feet without any arched work or pillars to support it, and is said never to have been surpassed. Plott, who in his history of Oxford has given a detailed description of it, calls Wren the English Vitruvius. Cambridge also was not slow to require his services, and his first commission was for a design for the new chapel of Pembroke Hall, of which his uncle had been a liberal benefactor. The celebrated library of Trinity College was also one of his early works.

CHAPTER IV.

On the form of the early Churches. BEFORE We enter on the subject of the erection of St. Paul's, confessedly the second of the cathedral edifices in Europe, it will not, we conceive, be out of place shortly to trace the origin of the present form of Christian Churches from the simple plans of the Temples of antiquity. Those of the Egyptians and Greeks were in the figure of a parallelogram again divided into squares or other parallelograms; and it probably was not till the Pantheon at Rome was erected, that the Grecian Tholos or circular temple was

attempted on so great a scale. The religious rites of the Greeks and Romans were all performed in the open air, either in the front of their temples, or in the midst of the city; the early Christians, on the contrary, persecuted on all sides, sought refuge in caverns and catacombs hid from the light of day, for the solemnization of the rites of their religion, until encouraged and protected by Constantine they first began to assemble openly in congregations, and to worship without fear.

The largest of the ancient enclosed buildings were the halls of Justice called Basilica, or Royal Houses; it is supposed by some, that these were first appropriated by Constantine to the use of the Christian congregations, and being closed on all sides protected them from the fanaticism of their persecutors. The early Christian Churches were constructed on the model of these, and, up to the present period, have in some examples retained their name. The original form of an ancient temple was an oblong cella, or chamber surrounded with porticoes, or where the side porticoes were omitted there was always one in the front; but in the basilica the porticoes were internal, there being no exterior portico or colonnade; and the interior was divided by rows of columns either into three or five divisions. (Fig. 1. and 2.) In the centre Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

division (fig. 1.) the judge administered the law; and the side aisles, or porticoes, were occupied by the merchants and traders.

The first Christian Basilicas are referred to Constantine, and about the year 324 he erected the grand one of St. Peter's. It was divided into five aisles, running from east to west, and was terminated at the end by another aisle, or transept, from north to south, in the centre of which was a large semicircular niche, giving to the building an imperfect form of a cross, which he especially directed, as a memorial of that miraculous one which he had witnessed before his victory over Maxentius. The large aisle was enclosed by forty-eight columns of precious marble, and the side aisles had fortyeight columns of smaller dimensions: the whole was covered with a flat ceiling composed of immense beams cased with gilt metal, and Corinthian brass taken from the temples of Romulus and Jupiter Capitolinus. A hundred smaller columns ornamented the shrines and chapels; the walls were covered with paintings of religious subjects; and the tribunal, or niche at the end, was enriched with elaborate Mosaics or inlaid marbles. A vast number of lamps illuminated the temple; in the greater solemnities 2400 were reckoned, and 1360 of these were contained in an enormous candelabrum. It was on the site of this magnificent temple, which, falling into ruins, was pulled down by Julius II., that the present Basilica of St. Peter's was erected. In this sort of building the intersection of the aisles and the transept produced a centre which it was natural to enlarge and make the principal in the composition ; this and the form of the Cross (the emblem of Christianity) were the cause of the deviations from the ancient form of the Basilica; and the invention of domes supported on pendentives added. a size and dignity to the centre, without interrupting the vista of the aisles.

The disposition of the ancient St. Peter's at Rome was followed by Constantine in the church which he erected in his new capital of Constantinople. This being destroyed, Justinian employed Anthemius and Isodorus to erect a magnificent temple that should immortalize his name, and in this they first ventured on the novel construction of adding a dome, remarkable for its diameter and flatness, over the centre. The

plan of this Basilica is a square of about two hundred and fifty feet; the interior forms a Greek cross, i. e. one with equal arms: the aisles are terminated at two ends by semicircles, and at the other two by square recesses: the aisles are vaulted, and the centre (where the aisles and transept intersect) forms the large square on which is raised the dome, of about one hundred and ten feet in diameter. The dome is supported on the four arches and the pendentives, or spandrils, which connect the square plan of the arches, and gradually form a circle at the level of their summit.

In consequence of the true principles of this mode of building not being discovered, the architects fell into many difficulties, and it was only after experiencing several failures, among them the falling of half the dome, and adding strong buttresses, that they were enabled to accomplish the glory of this magnificent design. These difficulties were, however, obviated in the building of St. Peter's, as in the dome and cone of St. Paul's, by adopting a much larger segment of a circle, and by inserting strong chains in the stone work at the base of the dome immediately over the arches, so as to give the lateral pressure a perpendicular bearing.

On the revival of the arts, this Basilica, the most magnificent and the last of the Lower Empire, was that which most influenced the form and character of the new temples. The Venetians in the tenth century copied with success the best parts of the disposition of Santa Sophia in the church of St. Mark, (now destroyed;) and it was probably the first of any extent which in Italy was constructed with a dome supported on pendentives or spandrils, and which gave the idea imitated in St. Peter's, of accompanying the great dome of a church with smaller and lower domes, to give a pyramidal effect to the whole. The church of Santa Maria del Fiore at Florence, from the magnitude of its dome, and the skill which Brunelleschi displayed in its construction,* acquired a celebrity that made the system of domes prevalent, till it was finally established in the church of St. Peter's, the grand type of all others. It was in the beginning of the sixteenth century that Bramante formed the magnificent design of suspending over the centre of the Basilica a circular temple

See Vasari's Life of Brunelleschi,

as large as the Pantheon;-raising, as he expressed it, the Pantheon on the Temple of Peace; and in the completion of this great work, Michael Angelo was occupied till his death.

CHAPTER V.

St. Paul's.

AFTER the nomination of the commission for the building St. Paul's, much discussion arose as to the plan. Wren's first design was to have but one order instead of two, and without any side oratories or aisles, these being only necessary for the ceremonies of the church of Rome : and this noble design appears in the beautiful model made by Wren, and kept in the present cathedral. The side aisles, however, were added either because their omission was considered too great a departure from the usual form of cathedrals, or (as is supposed by Mr. Spence in his anecdotes) because the suggestion of the Duke of York (James II.) was followed, and he was willing to have them ready for the Roman catholic service as soon as an occasion should arise. The addition of the side aisles is to be lamented, as they narrowed the building and broke in upon the beauty of the design; and the architect (ob serves Spence) insisted so strongly on the prejudice they were to the building, that he actually shed tears on speaking of it; but he remonstrated in vain. It would seem that this sort of interference is a misfortune peculiarly incidental to architects. Few would pretend to have a voice in the composition of a picture or the arrangement of a group of statuary; yet there is scarcely the work of any great architect, in the execution of which he has not in a great measure been compelled to abandon his original design, and adopt the suggestions (often incongruous) of his employers. Michael Angelo, in particular, was exposed to a like persecution, in his great work of St. Peter's, and alike had the harmony and beauty of his design impaired. After much cavilling the different objections were removed; Wren received an express order from the king to proceed according to his own plans; he was allowed to make what variations he pleased, and the whole was left to his own management. In thirty-five years from the commencement of the building, the highest and last stone was laid by Christopher, the son of the architect. Thus

was this splendid edifice, admitted to be the second for grandeur in Europe, completed in thirty-five years by one architect, under one bishop of London, costing only 736,0007., which was raised by a small impost on coals brought to London; whilst St. Peter's, the work of twelve architects, took one hundred and forty-five years to build, during the pontificate of nineteen popes.

One of the principal objections to the edifice is, that Wren chose two orders instead of one and an attic story, as in St. Peter's. That he intended to have adopted the single order (going from the top to the bottom) appears from what we have before stated. But whilst Bramante, for the erection of St. Peter's, had the quarries of Tivoli at his command, which yielded blocks of nine feet in diameter, amply sufficient for his columns, Wren had only the quarries of Portland, and from them he could not reckon on blocks greater than four feet in diameter, nor were even these readily procured; on which account, and that he might keep the just proportions of his cornice, (which Bramante, by the failure of the stone, had been compelled to diminish,) he finally determined on the use of two orders.

The dome of the Pantheon is no higher within than its diameter; the dome of St. Peter's is two diameters; and this appears too high, the other too low: Wren took a mean proportion, which shows its concave every way, and is lighted by the windows of the upper order, which permit the light to strike down through the great colonnade that encircles the dome without, and serves at the same time for the abutment of the dome itself, which is of two bricks thick, every five feet high having a course of bricks eighteen inches long bonding through the whole thickness. In consequence of the prejudice in favour of steeples, and that no disappointment might arise of the new church falling short of the old one, Wren, to give a greater height than the cupola would gracefully admit of, felt compelled to raise another structure over the first cupola. For this purpose he constructed a cone of brick, so as to support the vast stone lantern which surmounts it. This cone was covered with an oak roof, and this again with lead, in the same manner as the other parts of the church. Between this outside covering and the brick cone there are stairs to ascend to the lantern, lighted

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from the lantern above, which did away with the necessity of making the small ugly windows in the dome, as at St. Peter's. The inside of the whole cupola is painted by Sir James Thornhill, in eight compartments. In the crown of the vault, as in the Pantheon, there is a circular opening, by which not only the lantern transmits light, but the inside ornaments of the painted and gilded cone display a new and agreeable scene. Instead, however, of painting the dome, Wren had proposed it should, like that of St. Peter's, be enriched with the more durable and appropriate ornament of Mosaic, and had procured artists from Italy for its execution; but the ignorance and the prejudice of the persons employed as commissioners, in this, as in other cases, thwarted his views. The ornaments at the East end he designed should only be temporary, till the materials for the completion of a magnificent altar which he had planned could be procured.

In scale* and beauty of internal ornament, as well as material, situation, and climate, the work of Wren cannot come in competition with its great rival; but in architectural excellence it has fair claims to be placed on an equality; surpassing it in some things, if in others it falls short. The portico in front of St. Peter's, both for its beauty of proportion and vast size, is admitted to be a feature of high excellence and without any match in St. Paul's; yet the whole flat front of St. Peter's, terminating in a straight line at the top, cannot be said to afford such a pleasing variety as is bestowed by the elevation of the pediment in the middle, and the beautiful campanile towers at each end of the front of St. Paul's. One of the happiest parts of the invention is in the intersection of the three vistos of the nave, the aisles, and the cross and transept, attained by the octangular arrangement of the piers, which is as beautiful as it is novel, giving four additional views to the usual arrangement, and with an effect remarkable for its boldness and lightness. Fi

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