His Invention So Fertile: A Life Of Christopher Wren

Adrian Tinniswood

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Review

I rather suspect that if one asked the general public to “Name an architect, any old architect!” an overwhelming majority, apart from a few dissenting Scots, would nominate Sir Christopher Wren.  Sadly in fact, he might even be the only architect that many could muster.  And understandably too, for the evidence of his surviving work from Saint Paul’s Cathedral (and the London churches he designed or supervised as Surveyor-General of the King’s Works), rank as some of the greatest glories of our cultural heritage.

Shaming to tell, but apart from knowing that he dabbled in astronomy, I was completely unaware of his achievements as a founder member in 1660, of what would become the Royal Society, and that his observations and theories made vital contributions to the ideas of Newton, Halley and Boyle.

Adrian Tinniswood, author of many books about and for the National Trust, confesses that he too did not appreciate this aspect of the great man’s life, and in the early chapters of this excellent biography, he catches the youthful enthusiasm of this extraordinary polymath.  It was not until his only visit out of this country (to Paris to avoid the plague), that he opted for architecture as his definitive career.  Welcomed there as a key figure in the scientific community, he met Gian Lorenzo Bernini.  This in itself testifies to Wren’s own reputation, since this towering figure of the European Baroque had kings and popes in thrall.

The ensuing career and the masterpieces of his maturity are well-documented, and if there aren’t too many jokes in the telling of the later stages of Wren’s life, this can be accounted for by his hallowed reputation (and few enough jokes would remain fresh after 350 years), although the author, in one of his brief footnotes, contributes a saucy contemporary rhyming couplet about the King’s mistress and “The reason why she is not ducked” (as a witch).

It would seem that I have underestimated both the biographer and his subject, and so I doff my hat to Mr Tinniswood and bow to the genius of Sir Christopher. - review by Stewart Grimshaw