Tuesday 5 September 2017

Not Screened Off

Visiting St Etheldreda's, Hatfield, yesterday, I was delighted to find that the Salisbury Chapel in that fine church was not screened off but open to all. That made it possible to see (and photograph) from every angle this magnificent monument to the First Earl of Salisbury, with its superb statues of the Four Cardinal Virtues by Maximilian Colt, a Flemish sculptor who rose to become the King's Master Carver (the King being James I). Behind the statues and below the black marble slab on which the Earl lies in effigy is a skeleton, unadorned, on a rush mat. Memento mori.

5 comments:

  1. Absolutely beautiful. What artistry.

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  2. Yes indeed - and there are so many more wonders from this period standing unregarded in England's parish churches, as my forthcoming book will demonstrate. Well, I say forthcoming - give it a couple of years, maybe three...

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  3. I hope work is advancing on this...It would be a shame if you could not publish. Maybe you could publish an introductory version, with a select few of your favourites??

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  4. It is advancing, never fear...

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