THE BROCHURE SERIES
The Work of
Sir Christopher Wren
NOVEMBER, 1900

PLATE LXXXIII

ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL: LONDON

THE WORK OF
SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.

During the reign of James I. the Renaissance style in England, which in Elizabeth's time had been mingled in picturesque combination with the Gothic, was further developed, losing year by year more of the Gothic features and becoming purer as the Classic models and literature became better known. The Anglo-Classic, or fully evolved English Renaissance style, arose only, however, with the advent of the celebrated Inigo Jones, who brought to his work the fruits of long study in Italy, and a thorough knowledge of the work of Palladio who was his master in design. During his life Jones' influence was paramount, and up to the time of the Commonwealth he had a practical monopoly of the architectural profession in England. His work was taken up where he left it by an architect on the whole, more remarkable—one of the most remarkable figures, indeed, that architecture has produced—Sir Christopher Wren, whose influence after the Restoration was even more complete than that of Jones had been before it. No building of importance was erected in England during the last forty years of the seventeenth century, of which Wren was not the architect. To Americans, moreover, Wren's work has an especial interest. Our own Colonial style, particularly in the architecture of churches, was in no slight degree based upon models which he originated, and he has not without justification been called the "father of the American Colonial style."

Sir Christopher Wren was born at East Knoyle, Wiltshire, on October 20, 1632. He was the son of Christopher Wren, rector of East Knoyle. He early showed a taste for natural science and mathematics, and up to his twenty-ninth year devoted himself with great genius to scientific pursuits. His fame rests chiefly on his architectural achievements, but had his philosophical pursuits not been interfered with by the arduous profession to which he later devoted himself he could not have failed of securing a scientific position higher than that attained by any of his contemporaries, with of course one exception, Newton. Hooke in his "Micrographia" wrote of him, "I must affirm that scarce ever met in one man such a mechanical hand and so philosophical a mind." He made elaborate drawings to illustrate the anatomy of the brain, invented an instrument for planting, a method of making fresh water at sea, produced a scheme for the graphical construction of solar and lunar eclipses and occultation of stars, and solved a problem proposed by Pascal to the geometers of England. The practical use of the barometer as connected with the weather is attributed to him, though it was not commonly used as a weather glass until a much later date. He invented a method for