Old Saint Paul`s

Wenceslaus Hollar (Wenzel Vaclav) (1607–1677)

Old Saint Paul's, South side (Ecclesiae Cathedralis St. Pauli, A Meridi Prospectus)

1658

Etching; first state of two Dimensions

21.5 x 28.5 cm

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Wenceslaus Hollar (Wenzel Vaclav) (1607–1677)

Old St Paul`s Cathedral seen from the East

Pen and brown ink and brown and gray wash over black chalk, squared in black chalk, and incised

7.7 x 22.4 cm

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

After Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) 

Old St.Paul's, choir screen.

Print

The Royal Collection, Windsor

Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) 

Old St Paul's: Interior of east end. View of St. Mary's Chapel behind high altar, showing 7 lancet windows and rose window.

Etched 1656, published 1658

Print

The Royal Collection, Windsor

Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) 

Navis Ecclesiae Cathedralis S. Pauli Prospectus Interior: 

Interior view of Old St Paul's Cathedral; the whole perspective of the nave and of the choir beyond the choir screen

From William Dugdale's 'The History of St Pauls Cathedral in London' (London, 1658 and 1716).

Etched 1656, published 1658

402 x  356 mm

The British Museum, London

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) 

Tombs of Sebba and of Ethelred at Old St Paul's Cathedral.

Etched 1656, published 1658

Print

THe Royal Collection, Windsor

Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) 

Tomb of John of Gaunt at Old St Paul's Cathedral

Etched 1656, published 1658

Print

The Royal Collection, Windsor

Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) 

Tomb of St Erkenwald at Old St Paul's Cathedral

Etched 1656, published 1658

Print

The Royal Collection, Windsor

Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

Wenceslaus Hollar (Wenzel Vaclav) (1607–1677)

The monument of John Colet in Old St Paul's Cathedral, with bust of Colet, and skeleton below

From William Dugdale's 'The History of St Pauls Cathedral in London' (London, 1658 and 1716).

1658

Print

276 x 197 mm

The British Museum, London

Wenceslaus Hollar (Wenzel Vaclav) (1607–1677)

Tombs of Bishops of London Henry of Wingham, at left, (c. 1262) and Eustace de Fauconberg, (1170 c - 1228) at right, behind a row of five Gothic arches, their effigies with head to right

From William Dugdale's 'The History of St Pauls Cathedral in London' (London, 1658 and 1716).

1658

Print

212 x 275 mm

The British Museum, London

Wenceslaus Hollar (Wenzel Vaclav) (1607–1677)

Tomb slabs of John Newcourt and an unnamed ecclesiastic in Old St Paul`s Cathedral, London

From William Dugdale's 'The History of St Pauls Cathedral in London' (London, 1658 and 1716).

1658

Print

259 x 189 mm

The British Museum, London

Old St Paul's Cathedral was the medieval cathedral of the City of London  that, until 1666, stood on the site of the present St Paul's Cathedral. 

Built from 1087 to 1314 and dedicated to Saint Paul, the cathedral was the fourth church on the site at Ludgate Hill.

From the cathedral's construction until its destruction, the shrine of Saint Erkenwald  was a popular site for pilgrimage.

At the Reformation the Cathedral went into decline

At one point the Lady Chapel became a large preaching auditorium, while the vast nave was used as a cavalry barracks with, at one point, 800 horses stabled inside.

Fearful that the Cathedral would be destroyed during the Protectorate, Lord Hatton  commissioned the antiquarian William Dugdale`s The History of St Pauls Cathedral in London' (London, 1658 )

The book can be accessed here

The plates  were by the Bohemian, Wenceslaus Hollar (Wenzel Vaclav) (1607–1677)

After the Great Fire of London, the old cathedral was demolished and the new Wren construction rose from the ashes

In his Preface, Dugdale quoted rom Sir Walter Raleigh`s History of the World:

"That all cost and care bestowed and had of the Church wherein God is to be served and worshipped was accounted by those people a kinde of Popery; so that time would soon bring it to passe, if it were not resisted, that God would be turned out of Churches into Barnes; and from thence again into the Feilds and Mountains, and under Hedges; and the offices of the Ministry (robbed of all dignity and respect) be as contemptible as those places; all order, discipline and Church government left to newness of opinion and mens fancies; yea, and soone after, as many kindes of Religion spring up, as there are Parish-Churches within England; every contentious and ignorant person cloathing his fancie with the Spirit of God, and his imagination with the gift of Revelation, &c."

Dugdale said that the purpose of his work, his mission was that in regard to St Paul`s which was "one of the most eminent Structures of that kinde in the Christian World", he wanted "to transmit them [the sights of St Paul`s] to the veiw of those who were never like to see them in specie"

Dugdale was assisted by his chance discovery that hampers full of documents from the Cathedral's early archives, many dating from the 14th and 15th centuries, were mouldering in the cellar of the man Oliver Cromwell had appointed to supervise property confiscated from the Deans and Chapters of England's Cathedrals (which included the building, contents and archives of St. Paul's). 

Dugdale`s account was of the first detailed studies of a single building ever published. 

Unfortunately we are not as fortunate with Old St. Peter's Basilica, the building that stood, from the 4th to 16th centuries, on the spot where the St. Peter's Basilica stands today in Vatican City.

The final demolition of the Old St Peters was around  1606