Wren's preliminary design for the Sheldonian theatre

Architectural History

Volumn 45, Issue , 2002, Pages 275-288

  Geraghty, Anthony ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 60949660024     PISSN: 0066622X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/1568785     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. Christopher Wren, Parentalia: or, Memoirs of the Family of the Wrens (London, 1750), p. 335.
2. A drawing of Hawksmoor's St George, Bloomsbury, has been erroneously associated with Wren's preliminary design (The Wren Society, ed. A. T. Bolton and H. D. Hendry (Oxford, 1924-43), III, pl. 16;
3. The Victoria History of the County of Oxford, III (Oxford, 1954), p. 50, n. 5).
4. Anthony Wood, The History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, ed. John Gutch, 2 vols (Oxford, 1796), II, p. 795.
5. John Newman, 'The Architectural Setting', in The History of the University of Oxford, IV, Seventeenth-Century Oxford, ed. Nicholas Tyacke (Oxford, 1997), pp. 135-77 (pp. 161, 173-75).
6. The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God William Laud, ed. W. Scott and J. Bliss, 7 vols (Oxford, 1847-60), III, p. 254.
7. There is tacit evidence, however, that Sheldon was already involved behind the scenes. In April 1663 Clarendon informed Blandford that he knew 'where £1000 is to be had' (BL, Add. MS 14296, fol. 33), which was precisely the amount Sheldon gifted to the university in c. June 1664 (The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, II, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 21 (1892), p. 14).
8. According to Robert Plot, Wren designed the sundial at All Souls College, erected in 1659 (see Howard Colvin and J. S. G. Simmons, All Souls, an Oxford College and its buildings (Oxford, 1989), p. 70).
9. See Wren, Parentalia, pp. 53, 260.
10. The vice-chancellor's accounts for 1662-63 record that William Byrd, an Oxford mason, received £10 'for the modell of the new Theatre to be erectestimated by Dr. Wren': ( Wood's Life and Times, IV, Oxford Historical Society, 30 (1895), p. 71).
11. The model was probably made from wood, although this is impossible to know for certain. For Byrd, see J. C. Cole, 'William Byrd, Stonecutter and Mason', Oxoniensia, 14 (1949), pp. 63-74.
12. The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. A. R. and M. B. Hall, 13 vols (Madison and London, 1965-86), II, pp. 44-45. Clarendon, writing to Blandford on 30 April, reported that 'Dr Wren hath been with me And I have his Modell... I have since sent it to the King, who exceedingly commends it' (BL, Add. MS 14269, fol. 32v).
13. Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society of London, 4 vols (London, 1756), I, p. 230.
14. James Dallaway states that a 'plan' of the Theatre was given to the Museum of the Royal Society (Observations on English Architecture (London, 1806), p. 139)
15. although this may be a misreading of Birch, History of the Royal Society, I, p. 230.
16. There is no mention of the Theatre in Nehemiah Grew, Musaeum Regalis Societatis; or, A Catalogue & description of the Rarities belonging to the Royal Society (London, 1681).
17. Howard Colvin, Unbuilt Oxford (New Haven and London, 1983), pp. 13-20.
18. Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, II, pp. 44-45. Oldenburg probably penned the minutes of the Royal Society's meeting of 29 April: 'Dr Wren shewed the Company his Modell of the Theatre to be built at Oxford, for the University Acts, and upon Occasion, for Playes.'
19. Familiar letters which passed betzveen Abralmm Hill ... and several eminent and ingenious persons, ed. F. Astle (London, 1767), p. 110.
20. Wren Society, XII, p. 19 & pl. 22 (where the similarity with the Sheldonian is noted);
21. Wren Society, XX, p. 25.
22. M. I. Batten, 'The Architecture of Dr. Robert Hooke, F.R.S.', Walpole Society, 25 (1936-37), pp. 83-113 (pp. 89-90). Prior to Batten's article, the design of the College of Physicians was erroneously attributed to Wren.
23. All Souls II.73 (Wren Society, VII, pl. 10).
24. For Wren's drawing technique in c. 1664, see Kerry Downes, 'Wren and Whitehall in 1664', The Burlington Magazine, 113 (1971), pp. 89-92.
25. All Souls I.72 (Wren Society, V, pl. 4);
26. All Souls II. 3-7 (Wren Society, I, pls 5-8).
27. Oxford Council Acts 1626-1665, ed. M. G. Hobson and H. E. Salter, Oxford Historical Society, 95 (1933), p. 308.
28. Salter refers to 'a contemporary plan (c. 12. 3) made to illustrate the lease of 1663' in the City Archives collection (H. E. Salter, Oxford City Properties, Oxford Historical Society, 83 (1926), p. 288). This plan cannot be located today. I am grateful to Leilani Smith, Oxford City Archivist, for undertaking a search on my behalf.
29. See Wenceslaus Hollar's 1643 map of Oxford, reproduced in Old Plans of Oxford, Oxford Historical Society, 38 (1899).
30. Victoria History of the County of Oxford, III, p. 47, n. 79, p. 50, n. 9;
31. Wood's Life and Times, I, Oxford Historical Society, 19 (1891), p. 32.
32. This wall is confused with the adjacent City wall in Salter, Oxford City Properties, pp. 273- 285-90.
33. Wood, History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, II, p. 795;
34. Wood's Life and Times, IV, p. 72.
35. The executed building was originally surrounded by a more extensive set of walls, built to provide a setting for the Arundel Marbles presented to the university in 1667 (see David Sturdy and Neil Moorcroft, 'Christopher Wren and Oxford's Garden of Antiquities', Minerva, 10/1 (January/February 2001), pp. 25-28). Accommodating this second collection of antiquities was not, therefore, part of Wren's brief in 1663.
36. H. Hurst, Oxford Topography (Oxford Historical Society, 39 (1899)), pp. 124-25.
37. Statutes of the University of Oxford codified in the year 1636, ed. J. Griffiths (Oxford, 1888), pp. 67-75.
38. A summary translation is given in The Flemings in Oxford, ed. John R. Magrath, I, Oxford Historical Society, 44 (1903), pp. 531-3 5.
39. The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer, 5 vols (Oxford 1955), III, pp. 104-05, 531-34.
40. Statutes of the University ... 1636, p. 73.
41. Oxford University Archives, NW 20 12 (seating plans of Act auditorium erected in St Mary's church, 1605, at ground and upper levels). I am very grateful to David Sturdy for bringing this document to my attention. These plans are almost certainly from the same hand as the design for a theatre set up in Christ Church hall in 1605 (I am indebted to Dr Gordon Higgott for this observation). According to one contemporary source, both the Act auditorium and Christ Church theatre were constructed in 1605 by carpenters of the Office of the Works (John Orrell, The Theatres of Inigo Jones and John Webb (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 24-25, where the Christ Church design is reproduced).
42. It is unclear if the Act auditorium depicted in the 1605 drawing records the wooden structure built in the mid-sixteenth century (Register of the University of Oxford, ed. Andrew Clarke, II/i, Oxford Historical Society, 10 (1887), p. 320).
43. The stalls are of a type common to seventeenth-century Oxford. Wren probably had the seating arrangements of the Convocation House in mind, where there is a similar distinction between individualized stalls and benches (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England, City of Oxford (London, 1939), pls 47, 56).
44. A collection of several tracts of the Right Honourable Edward, Earl of Clarendon (London, 1727), p. 343.
45. For the royal play, see John R. Elliot, 'Drama', in Tyacke, History of the University, pp. 641-58 (pp. 644-54).
46. Robert G. Frank, 'Medicine', in Tyacke, History of the University, pp. 505-58 (pp. 541-46). It may be significant that the Tomlins Reader in 1661-65 was James Hyde, Clarendon's first cousin.
47. Wren was concurrently preparing illustrations for Thomas Willis, Cerebri anatome (London, 1664).
48. See J. A. Bennett, The mathematical science of Christopher Wren (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 77-82.
49. John Harris and A. A. Tait, Catalogue of the Drawings by Inigo Jones, John Webb and Isaac de Caus at Worcester College Oxford (Oxford, 1979), pp. 9-10.
50. See Harry Carter, A History of the Oxford University Press (Oxford, 1975), p. 46.
51. The building accounts extend from July 1664 to July 1669 (Bodleian Library, MS 898; selectively published in Wren Society, XIX, pp. 92-99).
52. Wood's Life and Times, II, Oxford Historical Society, 21 (1892), p. 14.
53. Hobson and Salter (eds), Oxford Council Acts 1626-65, p. 322.
54. Sheldon's decision is first documented at the close of the vice-chancellor's accounts for 1664-65, which were opened on 19 September 1664, four months after building work began (Wood's Life and Times, IV, p. 125). The building accounts, although silent on the nature of the work undertaken, imply an uninterrupted flow of work from July 1664 onwards (see n. 44 above). These first few months were no doubt spent digging foundations, during which period the design need not have been finalized.
55. Evelyn was in Oxford in October 1664, when Wren showed him 'the model, not disdaining my advise in some particulars', which perhaps implies that the design was then under discussion (The Diary of John Evelyn, III, p. 385).
56. This archaeological evidence was discovered by David Sturdy, who has since published a preliminary report: 'Changes in Wren's early designs: Observations on the Sheldonian Theatre and Wadham College, Oxford', The British Art Journal, I (2000), pp. 23-26. I am indebted to Mr Sturdy for Fig. 7.
57. H. M. Colvin, The Sheldonian Theatre and the Divinity School (Oxford, 1981; reprinted 1996).
58. Eduard Sekler, Wren and his Place in European Architecture (London, 1956), pp. 38-42, where the executed plan is likened to Barbaro's reconstruction of the Vitruvian theatre.
59. John Summerson, The Sheldonian Theatre in its Time (Oxford, 1964).
60. See also E. H. Gombrich, Art History and the Social Sciences (Oxford, 1975), where the iconography of Robert Streeter's ceiling is similarly interpreted.
61. This interpretation of the Sheldonian is challenged in Charles Saumarez Smith, 'Wren and Sheldon', Oxford Art Journal, 6/1 (1983), pp. 45-50.
62. The intellectual boundaries of Restoration Oxford, however, were far from clearly drawn. See Mordechai Feingold, 'Mathematical Sciences and New Philosophies', in Tyacke, History of the University, pp. 359-448 (p. 392)
63. and Michael Hunter, Science and Society in Restoration England (Aldershot, 1992 (Gregg Revivals)), pp. 136-61 (pp. 137-38).