The principal artisans and clerks appointed were as follows. The Master Mason was Edward Marshall (p. 99), who had, apparently, been guaranteed the post by Charles during the Commonwealth. He and his son Joshua Marshall became important figures, both as makers of monuments and for the part Joshua played under Wren in the City Churches and the early stages of St Paul's. John Davenport, the carpenter, and John Grove, the plasterer, became important in the same business. The Clerk Engrosser was William Dickinson (d. 1702). Another Clerk was Richard Gammon, a relation by marriage to Inigo Jones, under whose will he had benefited; with him was Leonard Gammon, his son. Finally, the Serjeant Painter was Sir Robert Howard, a cavalier warrior whose qualifications in the art were probably as doubtful as Denham's in architecture. He was responsible for some 'painted and coloured works' in the King's Closet at Whitehall and in Denham's new lodgings there, but relinquished his post in 1662-3, flourishing subsequently as Auditor of the Exchequer and, more con- spicuously, as a poet and dramatist. He was succeeded by Robert Streeter, whose career proved more productive.
Comparable to May as a designer (if we judge by the slight remains of his work) was William Samwell ( 1628-76). He was a Northamptonshire gentleman, and his eminence may be measured by the fact that he designed a town-house at Newmarket for Charles II. He never held office in the Works. Of his Newmarket building we know only that Evelyn found it 'mean', but the simple, well-pro- portioned brickwork of Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk ( 1674, for William Wyndham), does him great credit, and he also designed the original Eaton Hall, Cheshire, for Lord Grosvenor ( 1675-83). This, like so many other houses of the time, derived from Pratt's Clarendon House and it is impossible to determine whether Samwell stood on his own feet as a designer or was merely a prompt follower of Pratt and May.
This meeting with Bernini was not Wren's only contact with the living Baroque of seventeenth-century Italy. No less an exponent of Baroque than Guarino Guarini ( 1624-83) had begun to build the domed Theatine church of Ste-Anne-la-Royale at Paris in 1662, and during Wren's visit it will have reached an interesting stage. That Wren studied this church in progress is borne out by the remark, in a letter of 1666, that he had had the opportunity 'of seeing severall Structures ... while they were in rising, conducted by ye best Artists, French and Italian and having daily conference with ym and observing ye Engines and Methods'.
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Publication Information: Book Title: Architecture in Britain, 1530 to 1830. Contributors: John Summerson - author. Publisher: Penguin Books. Place of Publication: Baltimore, MD. Publication Year: 1954. Page Number: 124.
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