DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6910#0042
KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE. 23
and to Holbein. Perhaps the best mode of solving the difficulty is to consider them
as the productions of different artists, whose best works were copied, and applied to
tbis vitrified painting. The short time that was allowed for their completion implies
that they must have been executed in this country; and Holbein was the only
painter here capable of designing such pieces. Though ancient painted glass is
generally to be admired only for its effects, yet this at King's College is executed
with so much skill, taste, and judgment, that it has obtained the praise of the most
celebrated artists of modern times.
DESCRIPTION OF THOSE PARTS OF THE BUILDING REPRESENTED BY THE
ANNEXED PRINTS.
Plate I. Ground Plan, &c—In this plate the artists have endeavoured to de-
lineate the general and particular lines of the walls, buttresses, chapels, groining,
&c. of the building, in a geometrical ground plan. As the mind derives conceptions,
and comprehends objects more accurately by comparison, the reader may refer the
scale of this (310 feet long by 78 feet wide) to such buildings as he is familiar with.
The Chapel of St. George, at Windsor, measures about 218 feet long by 65 feet
wide; and Henry the Seventh's, at Westminster, about 120 feet in length by 64 in
width. The former has transepts, and side aisles, and the latter has also side ailes,
whence their plans are rather dissimilar to this at Cambridge. By reference to the
annexed print, it will be perceived that the groining, or tracery of the roofs, m the
different chantries or side chapels, is varied; whilst the vaulting of the great roof is
uniformly groined from east to west. The latter was executed according to a certain
"platt"—(vide Indentures, p. 12)—but the others were constructed at different
periods, and under the direction of different provosts, fee. Those two on the north
side, nearest to the east end, marked M and N, were the first that were finished;
and that at M was the private chapel of Dr. William Towne * who was one of the
twelve scholars placed in the college by Henry VI. at its first institution, in 1441
From this, and the corresponding chantry on the opposite side, a door-way
com-
* According to the custom of the times, the Doctor left a yearly revenue of four marks, for a priest (a fellow)
to say mass, &c. to relieve his soul from purgatory. An altar stood within the eastern angle of this chapel, which
was provided with a fire-place
and to Holbein. Perhaps the best mode of solving the difficulty is to consider them
as the productions of different artists, whose best works were copied, and applied to
tbis vitrified painting. The short time that was allowed for their completion implies
that they must have been executed in this country; and Holbein was the only
painter here capable of designing such pieces. Though ancient painted glass is
generally to be admired only for its effects, yet this at King's College is executed
with so much skill, taste, and judgment, that it has obtained the praise of the most
celebrated artists of modern times.
DESCRIPTION OF THOSE PARTS OF THE BUILDING REPRESENTED BY THE
ANNEXED PRINTS.
Plate I. Ground Plan, &c—In this plate the artists have endeavoured to de-
lineate the general and particular lines of the walls, buttresses, chapels, groining,
&c. of the building, in a geometrical ground plan. As the mind derives conceptions,
and comprehends objects more accurately by comparison, the reader may refer the
scale of this (310 feet long by 78 feet wide) to such buildings as he is familiar with.
The Chapel of St. George, at Windsor, measures about 218 feet long by 65 feet
wide; and Henry the Seventh's, at Westminster, about 120 feet in length by 64 in
width. The former has transepts, and side aisles, and the latter has also side ailes,
whence their plans are rather dissimilar to this at Cambridge. By reference to the
annexed print, it will be perceived that the groining, or tracery of the roofs, m the
different chantries or side chapels, is varied; whilst the vaulting of the great roof is
uniformly groined from east to west. The latter was executed according to a certain
"platt"—(vide Indentures, p. 12)—but the others were constructed at different
periods, and under the direction of different provosts, fee. Those two on the north
side, nearest to the east end, marked M and N, were the first that were finished;
and that at M was the private chapel of Dr. William Towne * who was one of the
twelve scholars placed in the college by Henry VI. at its first institution, in 1441
From this, and the corresponding chantry on the opposite side, a door-way
com-
* According to the custom of the times, the Doctor left a yearly revenue of four marks, for a priest (a fellow)
to say mass, &c. to relieve his soul from purgatory. An altar stood within the eastern angle of this chapel, which
was provided with a fire-place