His Invention So Fertile - Softcover

Tinniswood, Adrian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0712673644 ISBN 13: 9780712673648

Publisher: Pimlico, 2002

Synopsis

Christopher Wren (1632-1723) was the greatest architect Britain has ever known. But he was more than that. A founder of the Royal Society, he mapped the moon and the stars, investigated the problem of longitude and the rings of Saturn, and carried out groundbreaking experiments into the circulation of the blood. His observations on comets, meteorology and muscular action made vital contributions to the developing ideas of Newton, Halley and Boyle. His Invention So Fertile presents the first complete picture of this towering genius: the Surveyor-General of the King's Works, running the nation's biggest architectural office and wrestling with corruption and interference; the pioneering anatomist; the mathematician, devising new navigational instruments and lecturing on planetary motion. It also shows us the man behind the legend. Wren was married and widowed twice, he fathered a mentally handicapped child, quarrelled with his colleagues and fell foul of his employers. He scrambled over building sites and went to the theatre and drank in coffee-houses. The book explores what it was like to be at Oxford during the Commonwealth, as a generation struggled to make sense of a society in chaos; it recreates the tensions which tore apart the court of James II; it brings to life the petty jealousies that formed an integral part of both the building world and scientific milieu of the Royal Society. Above all, His Invention So Fertile makes clear to the general reader and the art historian just why Wren remains a cultural icon - both a creation and a creator of the world he lived in.

About this title

Review

"If you seek his monument, look around," commands Adrian Tinniswood in his scholarly but elegantly entertaining biography of Christopher Wren (1632-1723). "As an architect, he changed the face of England and the course of architectural history." Tinniswood describes with appreciation and discernment Wren's greatest buildings: "the bubble of unexampled lightness that is St. Stephen Walbrook" church, the additions to Hampton Court, and of course London's majestic St. Paul's Cathedral, a symbol of British faith and courage throughout the centuries. These structures were political as well as architectural achievements, and Tinniswood nicely captures the discretion, ruthlessness, and carefully cultivated connections that enabled Wren to survive the Civil War, get himself named Royal Surveyor, hang on to the job under five monarchs, and get designs approved and money wheedled out of a reluctant parliament. Tinniswood pays equally intelligent attention to Wren's early career as an esteemed Oxford astronomy professor and charter member of the Royal Society (and its president from 1681-3). He writes wittily about the quirks of Wren and such peers as Newton and Bernini, capturing the intensely personal nature of 17th-century public culture, and he (sparingly) offers his opinions in a way that enhances our understanding of the period. "I want my heroes to be people, not ideas," Tinniswood writes, after describing a squabble at the Royal Society. This sparkling biography reveals Wren as a human being without detracting from the heroic nature of his accomplishments. --Wendy Smith

About the Author

Adrian Tinniswood is an architectural historian who lives in the United Kingdom.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pimlico
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0712673644
• ISBN 13: 9780712673648
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480