CHAPTER II.
THE INVASION OF THE FOREIGN STYLE.
In order properly to understand the position of the Elizabethan mansion in the story of architectural development, it is necessary to examine the work which intervenes between it and the last of the Gothic period.
1.— Tomb of Prince Arthur (d. 1502) in Worcester Cathedral.
The first work with Renaissance detail that was done in England was the tomb of King Henry VII.—the actual altar-tomb, not the metal screen enclosing it. There is no foreign influence to be detected either in the screen or in the wonderful fan-tracery vault that spreads itself above (Plate [I]). These are essentially English productions, and yet there are certain parts of them which would lend themselves readily to the new-fashioned detail which was about to invade our shores; parts which in subsequent buildings were actually affected by it. But so far, that is up to the year 1509, when the king died, the chapel being still unfinished, there is no Renaissance detail. Nor is there any in the fine chantry in Worcester Cathedral, wherein King Henry's eldest son, Prince Arthur, who died in 1502, lies buried (Fig. [1]). The utmost that can be said is that here, as in the chapel at Westminster, the Gothic work is preparing to succumb to the new influence. It has been suggested that the king's own tomb was erected subsequently to that of his mother, the Countess of Richmond, who also lies in the Abbey. But the question is one of little importance; no long period can separate the two, and the important point is that the actual invasion of the foreign style is a well-marked event, the circumstances attending it are on record, its results still survive in an excellent state of preservation.
2.— Tomb of one of the Cokayne Family, Ashbourne Church, Derbyshire. Fifteenth Century.
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. Another novelty appears in the shape of the four cherubs poised at each corner of the tomb; they have no niches or other architectural background; they are detached pieces of sculpture, self-reliant; their purpose, which they no longer fulfil, was to hold banners, but these have long disappeared.
[1]Britton's Architectural Antiquities, Vol. II.