I don’t think it would be true to say that Londoners like myself take the monument to the Great Fire for granted any more than we do the Tower of London or Buckingham Palace. However, I’m a bit embarrased to say that I have never really studied it in great detail so I intend to put that right in this week’s blog. I hope you enjoy what I have written and will maybe look slightly differently at what is, in fact, the world’s tallest freestanding stone column. There’s a lot to write about so there will be two instalments …
Immediately after the 1666 fire, Parliament started to get to grips with what was needed for a speedy reconstruction of the City. Among practical initiatives, such as new building regulations and legal structures, there were two additional legislative articles which provided for memorials of ‘the dreadful visitation’. Firstly, there was to be a day of public fasting and humiliation on 2 September, unless that day fell on a Sunday. On that day God would be implored to ‘divert the like calamity for the time to come’. The second of these articles ordered that: a column or pillar of brass or stone be erected on, or as near unto, the said fire so unhappily began … with such inscription thereon as hereafter by the Mayor and Court of Aldermen in that behalf be directed.
Many ideas were considered, one in this case that included golden flames climbing the column and a huge Phoenix on top …
Eventually the design of a flaming urn was chosen and this was then given the stamp of approval from King Charles II. He rather wisely rejected the idea of having a statue of himself on the top.
The urn as seen from the viewing platform …
Dr Robert Hooke and Christopher Wren together created the final design for The Monument, and construction work commenced in 1671. It took six years to finish, partly due to the difficulty of obtaining enough Portland stone of the required dimensions, and partly due to the safety of the transport as we were at war with the Dutch again between 1672-4. It was finally completed and opened in 1677.
Wren had been appointed the Surveyor General in 1669 and (amongst many other buildings) his office would go on to design 51 City Churches, with Hooke also working on many of them.
Wren by Godfrey Kneller 1711 …
There is no known portrait of Hooke, which is extremely odd given that he was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society who made groundbreaking contributions across numeous fields. One reason that has been suggested for the absence of a portrait is that one that actually existed was destroyed by Sir Isaac Newton with whom Hooke frequently quarelled. Did Newton really do this? You can read a Royal Society blog on the subject here.
There is a portrait that some believe to be him. It’s by by Mary Beale (c.1680) and entitled Portrait of a Scientist …
Now to dig down into a bit of detail, starting with the relief carved by Caius Gabriel Cibber on the west side of the pedestal …
Bizarrely, opinions have often differed as to what some of the figures represent. According to Philip Ward-Jackson, the greatest expert on public sculpture in the City, only 18 years after its completion does any attempt seem to have been made to explain its iconographic programme.
The bottom left hand corner …
All are in agreement that this woman represents the City of London in distress. She has a discosolate or languishing posture, sitting on the ruins with her hair hanging down about her and her breast exposed. By her side lies the Cap of Maintenance, and a sword, ‘denoting the strong, plentiful and well govern’d City of London’.
Time, or the God Chronos, appears as a kindly old man with wings and bald head standing behind her and lifting her up. Time usually represents death and decay but here he is giving the City a new lease of life. He’s also known as a healer.
The figure on the right is a woman who stands beside City, gently touching her with one hand, whilst with the other she points upward with a sceptre towards two beautiful Goddesses sitting in the clouds. At her feet is a beehive (not very clear from my image). The consensus seems to be that she represents Industry (hence the beehive) and the sceptre suggesting speed, perspicacity and dexterity.
The three persons in the background are generally recognised as citizens in panic with the fire raging behind them, or possibly exulting in Time’s efforts to restore the City.
Above …
The Goddess on the left is generally read as Plenty, crowned and holding or leaning on a cornucopia or horn of abundance, from which fruit, corn jewellery and coin pour down in the direction of the City. The Goddess on the right is read as either Peace or Victory.
To the right of the Goddesses are labourers working on reconstruction …
The Act of Parliament stipulated that ‘the outsides of all buildings in and about the said City be henceforth made of brick or stone, or of brick and stone together’.
Now for this gathering of figures …
The group are shown walking towards the City and the central and most prominent character is King Charles II. He is dressed as a Roman Emperor, standing on a stone platform with a baton of command in his right hand. He gestures towards the personification of Architecture – who holds a square and compass in her left hand and plans for the new City of London in her right.
The Roman Goddess of Liberty stands behind Architecture, watching and holding her cap, bearing the word Libertas (latin for liberty or freedom). She is usually portrayed with two accoutrements: the rod and a pileus (latin for hat) which here she waves rather than wears.
A third female figure, to the left of Architecture, represents Imagination. She wears a winged crown with little figures on it and for some commentators these represent ‘children of her brain’, symbols of fruitfulness and good ideas. She also balances the representation of Nature in her hands, a multi-breasted little statue, which symbolises nature’s abundance.
To the right of King Charles II stands his brother, the Duke of York, the future King James II, apparently instrumental in putting out the Great Fire. The laurel wreath he holds represents Victory. Behind them, two more figures: Justice – holding a coronet and Fortitude – holding a lion on a leash. But what on earth is this creature …
According to Ward-Jackson this is Envy. ‘She is represented as a withered hag with snakes growing from her head lying in a cell … diabolically enraged at the concerted measures for rebuilding the City.’ She blows flames towards it ‘from her envenomed mouth’ while gnawing on her own heart which she crams in with her right hand.
Quirky fact: The Sculptor Caius Gabriel Cibber was Born in Flensburg, Denmark, a town close to the border between Germany, under the name of Sieber. He moved to London in the late 1650s after completing his studies in Italy. He had what we would probably call today a bit of a gambling addiction along with a general tendency to get into trouble and the record states that, before receiving the commission from Wren to work on the monument, he …
chanc’d to have a Gent lodge with him that practized gaming (and) drew him into play that ruin’d him to that degreee that when cut the Basso Relievo on the Monument in the City he then was a prisoner in the King’s bench and went backwards and forwards daily on that account
Nowadays we would say that he created the Monument sculpture whilst on prisoner day release!
Cibber’s portrait in the National Gallery …
The view in c. 1770 looking towards St Magnus the Martyr …
A view towards the church today …
Next week I’ll be writing, among other things, about the original purpose of the empty room at the base of the Monument along with a scandalous inscription that had to be deleted. It was the inspiration for the lines :
“Where London’s column pointing at the skies,
Like a tall bully, lifts its head, and lies.”
With regard to this week’s blog, many thanks to Look up London guide Katie Wignall for the images of the urn along with Dr Philip Ward-Jackson and his book Public Sculpture of the City of London for notes on the sculpture.
Incidentally, walking across Gilbert Bridge on 1st November I noticed these little red lights twinkling outside St Giles …
They were there to celebrate All Saints Day. What a lovely idea …
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