Grinling Gibbons: a Dutch master in England

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-297
Author(s):  
L. C. Cutler
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Still Life ◽  
Scientific Discourses ◽  
Restoration England ◽  
Charles Ii

Grinling Gibbons’s still-life sculpture emerged out of the artistic and proto-scientific culture of the seventeenth-century Netherlands and was understood in these intellectual terms by the sophisticated, courtly consumers of his work in Restoration England. Our fondness for a myth of Gibbons as a dazzlingly skilful but intellectually vapid artist should not blind us to the intellectual focus of his sculptures. The carved frame for Elias Ashmole’s portrait in the Ashmolean collection is a sophisticated engagement with European cultures of collecting. The Cosimo panel for Charles II engages with the witty and formidably advanced scientific discourses of the Caroline court, while the limewood reredos in St James’ church, Piccadilly reaches back to the devotional roots of floral still life, reinterpreting it in the context of English Protestantism.

Inventing Leonardo

2019 ◽  
pp. 153-166
Author(s):  
Margaret Dalivalle ◽  
Martin Kemp ◽  
Robert B. Simon
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Restoration England ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
Cultural Entity

From the evidence of contemporary literary sources, manuscript inventories, correspondence, and eyewitness accounts, Chapter 8 considers the penetration of literary concepts of Leonardo as an artist and thinker (pictor doctus), how the early reception relates to the wider ‘invention’ of Leonardo as a cultural entity, and whether a distinctly ‘British version’ of Leonardo can be detected. It focuses on the introduction into England of sixteenth-century Italian receptions of Leonardo via Richard Haydocke’s 1598 translation of Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo’s Trattato dell’arte della pittura, and from contact with Giorgio Vasari’s Lives. It proposes that, due to the scarcity of Vasari’s text in early modern England, it was Lomazzo’s account of Leonardo that influenced the earliest understanding of the artist in Britain. The chapter tracks the absorption of Vasari’s text in seventeenth-century England through the interventions of key individuals at the Stuart courts, before and after the Interregnum. A particular focus is the prominent role of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, who collected Leonardo’s writings and drawings from the Jacobean period until the mid 1640s. The dispersal of his collection throughout the seventeenth century, and the acquisition in the 1670s of the Windsor Volume by Charles II, and the Codex Arundel by the Royal Society, signal key staging posts in the reception of Leonardo in Restoration England.

scholarly journals Gangraena i remedium, o herezjach i zwyrodnieniu religijnym w Anglii połowy XVII w.

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (2 (246)) ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Jakub Basista
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
Religious Sects ◽  
Restoration England ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
Large Category

Gangraena and its cure: on Heresies and Religious Perversions in mid-seventeenth century England The English Civil War saw an explosion in the production of printed material. Booklets, pamphlets, leaflets, and ballads of all types and covering all manner of subjects appeared in their thousands. Indeed, the number of titles printed during this period surpassed 2,000 per year. Among these we find a large category of prints denouncing religious heresy and perverse behaviors. The most elaborate of these was Thomas Edwards’s Gangraena, which ran to several thousand pages in length and spanned three consecutive volumes. In this article, the author looks at various religious sects in England and aspects of their beliefs and behaviors to examine how the Restoration England of Charles II tried to cure its population of unorthodox and perverse religious ideas.

‘A Welsh Lancashire’? Monmouthshire Catholics in the Eighteenth Century

1979 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
The West ◽  
The North ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Jesuit Mission ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
Popish Plot

In the seventeenth century, one of the Catholic strongholds of Britain had lain on the southern Welsh borders, in those areas of north Monmouthshire and southern Herefordshire dependant on the Marquis of Worcester at Raglan, and looking to the Jesuit mission at Cwm. Abergavenny and Monmouth had been largely Catholic towns, while the north Monmouthshire countryside still merited the attention of fifteen priests in the 1670s—after the Civil Wars, and the damaging conversion to Protestantism of the heir of Raglan in 1667. Conspicuous Catholic strength caused fear, and the ‘Popish Plot’ was the excuse for a uniquely violent reaction, in which the Jesuit mission was all but destroyed. What happened after that is less clear. In 1780, Berington wrote that ‘In many [counties], particularly in the west, in south Wales, and some of the Midland counties, there is scarcely a Catholic to be found’. Modern histories tend to reflect this, perhaps because of available evidence. The archives of the Western Vicariate were destroyed in a riot in Bath in 1780, and a recent work like J. H. Aveling's The Handle and the Axe relies heavily on sources and examples from the north of England. This attitude is epitomised by Bossy's remark on the distribution of priests in 1773: ‘In Wales, the mission had collapsed’. However, the question of Catholic survival in eighteenth-century Wales is important. In earlier assessments of Catholic strength (by landholding, or number of recusants gaoled as a proportion of population) Monmouthshire had achieved the rare feat of exceeding the zeal of Lancashire, and Herefordshire was not far behind. If this simply ceased to exist, there was an almost incredible success for the ‘short, sharp’ persecution under Charles II. If, however, the area remained a Catholic fortress, then recent historians of recusancy have unjustifiably neglected it.

Serjeant Knight's Discourse on the Cross and Flags of St George (1678)

2001 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 351-390
Author(s):  
C S Knighton ◽  
Timothy Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Dominant Feature ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
Manuscript Copy ◽  
Samuel Pepys ◽  
Original Drawings

In January 1678 John Knight, the Serjeant Surgeon of Charles II, sent to Samuel Pepys a ‘Discourse containing the History of the Cross of St. George, and its becoming the Sole Distinction = Flag, Badge or Cognizance of England, by Sea and Land’. Knight argued that St George's cross should become the dominant feature in English flags and supported his argument with a history of the cross.A manuscript copy of this discourse, with Knight's original drawings, survives in the Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, and is published here. A brief biography of Knight is presented and an account of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century controversies about St George. The latter was an issue which caused acrimony between Royalists and Puritans. An Appendix reconstructs Knight's library, principally consisting of books concerning heraldry, topography and history.

scholarly journals Libertinism in English Restoration drama: a cognitive-pragmatic perspective

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
General Public ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
Restoration Drama ◽  
English Restoration ◽  
New Type ◽  
English Identity ◽  
Charles Ii

This paper aims to explore LIBERTINISM as a discourse-generative concept of the English Restoration and its manifestations in the 17th century drama. In the focus of attention are: the dramatic discourse of the seventeenth century and social and historical conditions that predetermined the origin and development of libertinism in the Restoration drama. In this article, I argue that during the Restoration LIBERTINISM thrived along with such concepts as EMPIRE, HONOUR, LOVE, MODE, SCIENCE, TRADE, and WIT. It is stated that after years of bans and prohibitions libertinism began to develop as a reaction against an overly religious dominant worldview that was imposed on the English people during the Interregnum. It is confirmed that libertinism was widely disseminated in the play-houses which were reopened by Charles II after almost a twenty-year break. In this article, I argue that libertinism takes its ideas from the teachings of René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes; it viewed as extreme hedonism and rejection of all moral and religious dogmas. Charles II himself set an example which was emulated by his courtiers and therefore libertine modes of behaviour were demonstrated to the general public as role models by the aristocracy which regained power with the Restoration. I also claim that as during the English Restoration many play wrights either were libertines or wrote about libertine behaviour and adventures in their plays, the dramatic discourse of the seventeenth century gave rise to a new type of English identity–the English Restoration libertine-aristocrat. Accordingly, the dramatic discourse and dramatic performances of the seventeenth century were the means of establishment, reiteration, and dissemination of the libertine ethos.

A politics of the senses: the political role of theKing’s-Evil in Richard Wiseman’s Severall Chirurgicall Treatises

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 288-294
Author(s):  
Adam S Komorowski ◽  
Sang Ik Song
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Case Series ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Political Expediency ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Restoration England ◽  
Charles Ii

Written by Richard Wiseman, sergeant-surgeon to King Charles II of England, ‘A Treatise on the King’s-Evil’ within his magnum opus Severall Chirurgicall Treatises (1676), acts as a proto-case series which explores the treatment and cure of 91 patients with the King’s-Evil. Working within the confines of the English monarch’s ability to cure the disease with their miraculous (or thaumaturgic) touch, Wiseman simultaneously elevates and extends the potential to heal to biomedicine. Wiseman’s work on the King’s-Evil provides an interesting window through which the political expediency of the monarch’s thaumaturgic touch may be explored. The dependence of the thaumaturgic touch on liturgy, theatricality and its inherent political economy in Restoration England allowed Wiseman to appropriate the traditionally monarchical role of healer as his own, by drawing attention to a medical ritual of healing that was as reliant, just as the theatrical ritual of monarchical thaumaturgy was, on symbolic binaries of healer–healed, head–body and touch–sight.

‘Stampt with your own Image’

2018 ◽  
pp. 303-318
Author(s):  
B. J. Cook
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Extra Dimension ◽  
James I ◽  
Charles Ii

The most familiar representation of European monarchy in the seventeenth century still remained the coinage. By this time it was unremarkable in itself that a new reign would produce new coin designs, but virtually every Stuart succession involved an extra dimension of some significance, including the accession of a foreign monarch; the restoration of the monarchy; and the joint sovereignty arrangements of William and Mary. Two Stuart reigns, those of James I and Charles II, began with two new coinage redesigns in quick succession, following an initial acknowledgement of the new reign with a more thoroughgoing revision, even though this had the potential to distract from the image and message each had initially established. This chapter reviews how these highly unusual adjustments proceeded and what motives lay behind them.

Stuart Coronations in Seventeenth- Century Scotland

2018 ◽  
pp. 241-256
Author(s):  
Jane Rickard
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Charles I ◽  
Charles Ii

The Scottish coronations of Stuart monarchs were highly politically significant—and controversial—occasions. When, in 1633, Charles I finally visited Scotland to be crowned, the manner of the coronation and of the king’s conduct bred anxiety and resentment among the Scots. His son would be crowned in Edinburgh long before being crowned Charles II in England: taking place in 1651, this Scottish coronation was a defiant challenge to the Commonwealth regime. Restored to the throne of England in 1660, Charles II was crowned in London in a ceremony that did not acknowledge his earlier Scottish coronation. This chapter examines the literature surrounding and linking these three coronation ceremonies that was published in Scotland, and, in some cases, republished or answered in England. It argues that this succession literature both illuminates and plays a dynamic role in shaping Scottish cultural identity and Anglo-Scottish relations.

Henry Care, Roger L’ Estrange and the Contested Memory of Erasmus and the Reformation in Restoration England

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-33
Author(s):  
Gregory D. Dodds
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Desiderius Erasmus ◽  
The Public ◽  
William Penn ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
English Society ◽  
Liberty Of Conscience ◽  
Restoration England ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Henry Care and Roger L’ Estrange fought a bitter battle in the public press in Restoration England. Exploring the ways in which each employed the writings and reputation of Desiderius Erasmus provides insight into the deep fault lines dividing English society in the decade from 1678 to 1688. Their divergent uses of Erasmus demonstrate how late-seventeenth-century interpretations of the early sixteenth-century Reformation became critical points of conflict in the most significant political and religious debates of the period. Paying attention to the reception of Erasmus also helps explain how these two bitter enemies eventually joined William Penn in supporting James II’s Indulgence for Liberty of Conscience.

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