Early Renaissance Architecture in England: A Historical & Descriptive Account of the Tudor, Elizabethan, & Jacobean Periods, 1500-1625Gotch, J. Alfred (John Alfred)
History
Early Renaissance Architecture in England: A Historical & Descriptive Account of the Tudor, Elizabethan, & Jacobean Periods, 1500-1625
Henry VII. says in his will, dated 31st March, 1509, that he had
arranged for his tomb to be made in a certain manner,[1] and from other
sources we gather that the men who were to do the work were certain
English craftsmen, of whom Lawrence Imber, carver; Drawswerd, sheriff
of York; Humphrey Walker, founder; Nicholas Ewen, coppersmith; Robert
Virtue, Robert Jenins, and John Lebons, master masons, were the chief.
The last name is the only one with a foreign appearance, but it is a
curious and rather significant fact that the design had been made by
one "Master Pageny," as he was called by his English acquaintances,
but whom his own countrymen called Paganino. No other work of Master
Pageny's is known in England, but it seems tolerably clear that he is
the same Paganino who designed the tomb of the French King Charles
VIII. at St. Denis, and that Henry's tomb was to have been like it.[2]
The project, however, fell through in consequence of the death of the
king, and the passing of the control of affairs into the hands of his
son, Henry VIII. The new monarch discarded the old design entirely,
and entrusted the work to Pietro Torrigiano, or Peter Torrisany, as
he became on English lips. Torrigiano's design departed widely from
English traditions. The leading idea of recumbent figures upon an
altar-tomb was retained--this idea indeed held the field for another
three-quarters of a century--but the old practice of adorning the sides
of the tomb with cusped panels, or figures of saints in niches, or
angels holding shields of arms (Fig. 2), was abandoned; and instead of
the restrained architectural treatment of the English tradition, where
the figures were solitary, and every fold of drapery harmonised with
the main architectural members, Torrigiano gave us the free treatment
of the Italian sculptors. The general arrangement of the panels is
simple enough (Plate II.). There are three circular wreaths on each
of the longer sides of the tomb, divided by Italian pilasters adorned
with arabesques, into which the rose and portcullis of the Tudors
are introduced. A rose also fills each of the four spandrils formed
by the circular wreaths. These wreaths were new to English eyes; so,
too, was the treatment of the spandrils, where the flower is simply
applied to the triangular space, instead of appearing to be a growth
on the structure itself in the old Gothic way (Fig. 3). The panels
themselves contain figures in action, figures which have cast away
conventional attitudes and stiffness of attire, and comport themselves
in the most natural way imaginable. Henry's patron saints are there to
the number of ten, but instead of standing in niches, statuesque and
motionless, they are grouped in pairs, every pair seeming interested
in a common subject, instead of each individual being rapt in solitary
contemplation. As there are six panels, the ten patron saints are
supplemented by two other figures--the Virgin with the Child, and
St. Christopher.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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