Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T22:30:45.329Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Victorian Wrenaissance: Historical Narrative at St. Paul's Cathedral

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2021

Dory Agazarian Open the ORCID record for Dory Agazarian [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The condition of St. Paul's Cathedral was central to concerns about the perception of London over the course of the nineteenth century. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, it faced public criticism from the start. Unlike gothic Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's was an eclectic amalgam of gothic and neoclassical architecture; its interior was never finished. Efforts to decorate were boxed in by the strictures of Victorian architectural revivalism. This is the story of how academic historiography resolved a problem that aesthetic and architectural theory could not. Throughout the century, cathedral administrators sought to improve the cathedral by borrowing tools from historians with varying success. In the 1870s, a solution emerged when historians reinvented the Italian Renaissance as a symbol of liberal individualism. Their revisionist Renaissance provided an alternative to pure gothic or neoclassical revivalism, able to accommodate Wren's stylistic eclecticism. Scholars have traditionally plotted disputes about St. Paul's within broader architectural debates. Yet I argue that these discussions were framed as much by historical discourse as aesthetics. Turns in Victorian historiography eventually allowed architects to push past the aesthetic limits of the Battle of the Styles. New methods in Victorian historical research were crucial to nineteenth-century experiences of urban space.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , Fall 2021 , pp. 389 - 422
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

“Aesthetics of the Thanksgiving.” Saturday Review 33 (March 2, 1872): 271–72.Google Scholar
Alexander, S. A. “Democratic Vision: The Cross and the Dome.” In Sir Christopher Wren, A.D. 1632–1723: Bicentenary Memorial Volume Published under the Auspices of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 265–71. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1923.Google Scholar
“All Round St. Paul's.” All the Year Round 19, no. 467 (April 4, 1868): 389–93.Google Scholar
Bentinck, George Augustus Frederick Cavendish. The Completion of St. Paul's. London: n.p., 1874.Google Scholar
“Big Blunder of Sir Christopher Wren.” Spectator, December 1, 1849, n.p.Google Scholar
Birch, George Henry. London Churches of the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries. London: B. T. Batsford, 1896.Google Scholar
Blomfield, Reginald Theodore. Memoirs of an Architect. London: Macmillan, 1932.Google Scholar
Blomfield, Reginald Theodore. A Short History of Renaissance Architecture in England, 1500–1800. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1900.Google Scholar
Bonner, G. W. Kidd's New Guide to the “Lions” of London: or, the Stranger's Directory. London: William Kidd, 1832.Google Scholar
Bremner, G. Alex. Imperial Gothic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Bremner, G. “‘Imperial Monumental Halls and Tower’: Westminster Abbey and the Commemoration of Empire, 1854–1904.” Architectural History 47 (2004): 251–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broome, F. Napier. “Correspondence.” John Bull (July 15, 1871): 485.Google Scholar
Bullen, J. B. The Myth of the Renaissance in Nineteenth-Century Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“The Burial Place of the Duke of Wellington.” The Lady's Newspaper, Sept. 25, 1852, 190.Google Scholar
Carlyle, Thomas. Past and Present. 3rd ed. New York: William H. Colyer, 1844.Google Scholar
St. Champneys, Basil. “The Interior of St. Paul's Cathedral: Past, Present and Future.” The Magazine of Art, January 1883, 151–62.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alice. A Dream of Order: The Medieval Ideal in Nineteenth-Century English Literature. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970.Google Scholar
Church, R. W. Life and Letters of Dean Church. Ed. Church, Mary C.. London: Macmillan, 1895.Google Scholar
C. L. H. “Art and Artists: Talks on Art.” The International Interpreter, March 17, 1923, 1587.Google Scholar
Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
“The Completion of St. Paul's Cathedral.” British Architect 2, no. 49 (1874): 343–46.Google Scholar
“Contemporary Literature: Art.” Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review 100, no. 198 (October 1873): 530–40.Google Scholar
“Correspondence.” John Bull, June 27, 1874, n.p.Google Scholar
Crook, J. Mordaunt. The Dilemma of Style: Architectural Ideas from the Picturesque to the Post-Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Crook, J. Mordaunt. “William Burges and the Completion of St. Paul's.” Antiquaries Journal 60, no. 2 (1980): 285–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Culler, Dwight. The Victorian Mirror of History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Curiosities of London and Westminster Described in Four Volumes. Vol. 3. London: E. Newberry, 1784.Google Scholar
Dellheim, Charles. The Face of the Past: The Preservation of the Medieval Inheritance in Victorian England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1982.Google Scholar
Dowling, Linda. The Vulgarization of Art: The Victorians and Aesthetic Democracy. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1996.Google Scholar
E. A. F. [Freeman, Edward A.]. “Gothic or Classic, a Plain Statement of the Question.” The Friend of India, December 8, 1859, 1163.Google Scholar
Eastlake, Charles. Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery and Other Details. 1872. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1971.Google Scholar
Eastlake, Charles. A History of the Gothic Revival. London: Longmans, Green, 1872.Google Scholar
Eastlake, Charles. “St. Paul's Cathedral.” Fraser's Magazine 8 (1873): 284–97.Google Scholar
E. H. P. “Annals of St. Paul's Cathedral.” Contemporary Review 10 (1869): 302–4.Google Scholar
Elmes, James. Memoirs of the Life and Works of Sir Christopher Wren. London: Priestley and Weale, 1823.Google Scholar
Evers, Bernd, and Thoenes, Christof, eds. Architectural Theory: From the Renaissance to the Present: 89 Essays on 117 Treatises. Köln: Taschen, 2011.Google Scholar
“Exactions at St. Paul's Cathedral.” Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction, September 30, 1843, 225.Google Scholar
Feltham, John. The Picture of London, for 1803. London: R. Phillips, 1803.Google Scholar
Fergusson, James. A History of the Modern Styles of Architecture. London: John Murray, 1862.Google Scholar
Fergusson, James. “St. Paul's Cathedral.” Contemporary Review 24 (1874): 750–71.Google Scholar
Fetridge, W. Pembroke. The American Traveller's Guide: Harper's Hand-Book for Travellers in Europe and the East. New York: Harper & Bros., 1873.Google Scholar
Fisk, Wilbur. Travels on the Continent of Europe. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1838.Google Scholar
Fletcher, Banister. A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method. London: Batsford, 1905.Google Scholar
Gagnier, Regenia. The Insatiability of Human Wants: Economics and Aesthetics in Market Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Girouard, Mark. Sweetness and Light: The Queen Anne Movement, 1860–1900. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Godwin, Edward. “The Decoration of St. Paul's Cathedral.” Frasers Magazine 10 (1874): 214–22.Google Scholar
Godwin, William. Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, the Early English Poet; Including Memoirs of His Near Friend and Kinsman, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; with Sketches of the Manners, Opinions, Arts and Literature of England in the Fourteenth Century. London: Richard Phillips, 1804.Google Scholar
Hall, Catherine. Macaulay and Son: Architects of Imperial Britain. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, John. “On the Opening of the Ports of St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.” New Monthly Magazine and Humorist 79, no. 314 (Feb. 1847): 162–72.Google Scholar
Hammerton, Elizabeth, and Cannadine, David. “Conflict and Consensus on a Ceremonial Occasion: The Diamond Jubilee in Cambridge in 1897.” Historical Journal 24, no. 1 (1981): 111–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansard Parliamentary Debates. 1st ser., vol. 155 (Apr. 16, 1777).Google Scholar
Hansard Parliamentary Debates. 3rd ser., vol. 155 (Aug. 4, 1859).Google Scholar
Hardy, Thomas. Jude the Obscure. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1898.Google Scholar
Hart, Vaughan. “Inigo Jones's Site Organization at St. Paul's Cathedral: ‘Ponderous Masses Beheld Hanging in the Air.’” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 53, no. 4 (1994): 414–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higgott, Gordon. “The Revised Design for St Paul's Cathedral, 1685–1690: Wren, Hawksmoor and Les Invalides.” Burlington Magazine (2004): 534–47.Google Scholar
Hinojosa, Lynne J. Walhout. The Renaissance, English Cultural Nationalism, and Modernism, 1860–1920. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Historical Commemoration at St. Paul's.” The Observer, June 6, 1897, n.p.Google Scholar
Holland, Scott. Life and Letters of Dean Church, edited by Church, Mary C.. London: Macmillan, 1894.Google Scholar
HRH the Prince of Wales. The Corporation of London Planning and Communication Committee's Annual Dinner. The Mansion House. London, 1987.Google Scholar
“The Internal Decoration of St. Paul's Cathedral.” Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review (Sept. 1852): 261–69.Google Scholar
Johnston, J. O. Life and Letters of Henry Parry Liddon, edited by Paget, Francis. London: Longmans, Green, 1904.Google Scholar
Keene, Derek, Burns, Arthur, and Saint, Andrew, eds. St. Paul's: The Cathedral Church of London, 604–2004. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Law, John E., and Østermark-Johansen, Lene, eds. Victorian and Edwardian Responses to the Italian Renaissance. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lecourt, Sebastian. Cultivating Belief: Victorian Anthropology, Liberal Aesthetics and the Secular Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leigh, Samuel. Leigh's New Picture of London; or, A Luminous Guide to the Stranger: On All Subjects Connected with General Information, Business or Amusement. London: Leigh, 1830.Google Scholar
“The Literary Week.” Academy and Literature 64, no. 1610 (March 14, 1903): 241.Google Scholar
Loftie, W. J. Inigo Jones and Wren: or The Rise and Decline of Modern Architecture in England. London: Rivington, Percival, 1893.Google Scholar
Longman, William. A History of the Three Cathedrals Dedicated to St. Paul in London. London: Longmans, Green, 1873.Google Scholar
McCarthy, Justin. Charing Cross to St. Paul's. New York: Macmillan, 1893.Google Scholar
Milman, Henry Hart. Annals of St. Paul's Cathedral. London: Murray, 1868.Google Scholar
Milman, Lena. Sir Christopher Wren. London: Duckworth; C. Scribner's Sons, 1908.Google Scholar
Murray, John (Firm). Handbook to London as It Is. London: J. Murray, 1879.Google Scholar
Murray, John (Firm). Modern London: or, London as It Is. London: J. Murray, 1851.Google Scholar
Murray, John (Firm). St. Paul's. Vol. 7 of Handbook to the Cathedrals of England. London: John Murray, 1879.Google Scholar
“The National Thanksgiving.” Manchester Gazette, Feb. 28, 1872.Google Scholar
Nead, Lynda. Victorian Babylon: People, Streets and Images in Nineteenth-Century London. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Newbolt, W. C. E. “St. Paul's Cathedral.” Good Works (Jan. 1897): 403–10.Google Scholar
Nicoletti, I. S. “Morbid Topographies.” In A Mighty Mass of Brick and Smoke: Victorian and Edwardian Representations of London, edited by Phillips, Lawrence. Amsterdam: Rodopoi, 2007.Google Scholar
Pater, Walter. Studies in the History of the Renaissance. London: Macmillan, 1873.Google Scholar
Pichot, Joseph Jean M. C. Amédée. Historical and Literary Tour of a Foreigner in England and Scotland. London: Saunders & Otley, 1825.Google Scholar
Port, M. H. Imperial London: Civil Government Building in London, 1851–1915. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
“Preparations for the Duke of Wellington's Funeral in St. Paul's Cathedral.” Lady's Newspaper 23 (Oct. 1852): n.p.Google Scholar
Pugin, A. W. Contrasts: or, A Parallel between the Noble Edifices of the Middle Ages, and Corresponding Buildings of the Present Day; Shewing the Present Decay of Taste. London: Charles Dolman, 1841.Google Scholar
The Queen's London: A Pictorial and Descriptive Record of the Streets, Buildings, Parks and Scenery of the Great Metropolis in the Fifty-Ninth Year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. London: Cassell, 1896.Google Scholar
The Royal Companion to the ‘Sights of London’ within Twenty-five Miles of St. Paul's. London: Joseph Clayton and Son, 1851.Google Scholar
Royal Institute of British Architects. Sir Christopher Wren, A.D. 1632–1723: Bicentenary Memorial Volume. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1923.Google Scholar
Ruhl, Carsten. “Colen Campbell.” In Architectural Theory: From the Renaissance to the Present: 89 Essays on 117 Treatises, edited by Evers, Bernd and Thoenes, Christof. Berlin: Taschen, 2003.Google Scholar
Ruskin, John. The Stones of Venice. 1851–53. New York: Da Capo Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Saint, Andrew. “The Reputation of St. Paul's.” In St. Paul's: The Cathedral Church of London, 604–2004, edited by Keene, Derek, Burns, Arthur, and Saint, Andrew, 451–63. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Sala, George Augustus. “What IS to Be Done with St. Paul's?” Belgravia: A London Magazine (Sept. 1874): 296–303.Google Scholar
Sanders, Andrew. In the Olden Time: Victorians and the British Past. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Scott, G. Gilbert. “Mr. Burges’ Models for the Decoration of St. Paul's Cathedral.” The Academy 5 (1874): 643–44.Google Scholar
Silliman, Benjamin. A Visit to Europe in 1851. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1854.Google Scholar
Sladen, Teresa. “Embellishment and Decoration, 1696–1900.” In St. Paul's: The Cathedral Church of London, 604–2004, edited by Keene, Derek, Burns, Arthur, and Saint, Andrew, 233–58. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Smyth, George Lewis. The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral and of Westminster Abbey. London: John Williams, 1826.Google Scholar
Smyth, George Lewis. The Worthies of England: or, Memoirs of Eminent Persons. London: J. J. Griffin, 1850.Google Scholar
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Lives of Eminent Persons. London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1833.Google Scholar
“St. Paul's.” John Bull, July 16, 1870, 502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“St. Paul's Cathedral.” The Architect, June 20, 1874, 349.Google Scholar
“St. Paul's Cathedral, London.” Illustrated Magazine of Art 1, no. 2 (1853): 109–11.Google Scholar
Strong, Roy. Painting the Past: The Victorian Painter and British History. London: Pimlico, 2004.Google Scholar
“Sunday Evening Services at St. Paul's.” The Observer, Nov. 29, 1858, n.p.Google Scholar
Symonds, John Addington. The Renaissance: An Essay Read in the Theatre, Oxford June 17, 1863. Oxford: Henry Hammans, 1863.Google Scholar
Tinniswood, Adrian. His Invention So Fertile: A Life of Christopher Wren. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
“The Tower, the Temple and the Minister.” Wesleyan Magazine (1870): 36–49.Google Scholar
Turner, Emily. “The Church Missionary Society and Architecture in the Mission Field: Evangelical Anglican Perspectives on Church Building Abroad, c. 1850–1900.” Architectural History 58 (2015): 197–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, Laurence, and Henry Ward, W.. “The Crafts at St. Paul's.” In Sir Christopher Wren, A.D. 1632–1723: Bicentenary Memorial Volume. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 83–114.Google Scholar
Twyning, John. Forms of English History in Literature, Landscape and Architecture. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Unsigned review of “Elmes’ Life of Wren.” Eclectic Review 19 (1823): 539–48.Google Scholar
Unsigned review of “Milman's Annals of St. Paul's.” London Quarterly Review 32, no. 63 (1869): 65–101.Google Scholar
von Raumer, Friedrich. England in 1835: Being a Series of Letters Written to Friends in Germany During a Residence in London and Excursions into the Provinces. London: J. Murray, 1836.Google Scholar
Warre-Cornish, Francis. “Greek Beauty and Modern Art.” Fortnightly Review 20 (September 1873): 326–36.Google Scholar
Weinstein, Ben. “Questioning a Late Victorian Dyad: Preservationism, Demolitionism, and the City of London Churches, 1860–1904.” Journal of British Studies 53, no. 2 (2014): 400–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, Katherine. Victorian Perceptions of Renaissance Architecture. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014.Google Scholar
Whitten, Wilfred. “London and ‘A Year Hence.’” Bookman 29, no. 171 (Dec. 1905): 140.Google Scholar
[Wilkins, William Noy]. St. Paul's Cathedral: The Impression and the Remedy. London: Hardwicke and Bogue, 1876.Google Scholar
Wiseman, Nicholas. Essays on Various Subjects. London: Charles Dolman, 1853.Google Scholar
Wiseman, Nicholas. Four Lectures on the Offices and Ceremonies of Holy Week, as Performed in the Papal Chapels. Delivered in Rome in the Lent of MDCCCXXXVII. London: Charles Dolman, 1837.Google Scholar
Zemgulys, Andrea. “Building the Vanished City: Conservationism in Turn-of-the Century London.” Nineteenth Century Prose 26, no. 1 (1999): 35–58.Google Scholar