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of Bragança, Philip IV of Spain ruled Portugal as Philip III during the construction of the façade. Before him two other Philips had reigned over Spain and Portugal, beginning with Philip II, crowned Philip I of Portugal in 1580. Throughout most of this highly controversial historical period very large altarpieces in a classical style were being built in Spain and Portugal. The prime instance of late sixteenth-century classical altarpieces of huge dimensions is the massive main retable of the church of the Escorial.
It is rather frustrating that no known contemporary source actually establishes any sort of comparison between the frontispiece of St. Paul and these retables. Even in our days specialists have ignored the connection. The reason may be that the façade of St. Paul does not conform to known examples of retable-façades. Even in the largest surviving examples the actual retable configuration is contained within the elevation by various means, such as the large buttresses found in Santa Maria A Grande in Pontevedra. They indicate to the viewer that this is a simulated stone altarpiece cleverly applied to the front of the building for his or her admiration and astonishment. At St. Paul's there is no containment, no similar signalling to the beholder that its designer intended a metaphorical retable. Here the altarpiece simile seems to extend to the whole of the church's front. This fact would certainly make this façade unique, but would not necessarily exclude it from classification as a retable-façade.
Given the lack of primary sources that would justify such a classification one must largely rely on the visual evidence. The following section shows how an analysis of the façade's structure and of its iconography can lead to reasonable conclusions supporting this hypothesis.
Artists and Dates of Construction
Who the architect and artists of the surviving frontispiece were and when they built it is a question that has eluded scholars due to a lack of contemporary sources. These sources plainly state that the architect of the church was the Italian Jesuit Carlo Spinola and one can surmise that he drafted the design of the elevation, but no one really knows. Spinola died a martyr's death in 1622, before the construction of the façade.
146
of Bragança, Philip IV of Spain ruled Portugal as Philip III during the construction of the façade. Before him two other Philips had reigned over Spain and Portugal, beginning with Philip II, crowned Philip I of Portugal in 1580. Throughout most of this highly controversial historical period very large altarpieces in a classical style were being built in Spain and Portugal. The prime instance of late sixteenth-century classical altarpieces of huge dimensions is the massive main retable of the church of the Escorial.
It is rather frustrating that no known contemporary source actually establishes any sort of comparison between the frontispiece of St. Paul and these retables. Even in our days specialists have ignored the connection. The reason may be that the façade of St. Paul does not conform to known examples of retable-façades. Even in the largest surviving examples the actual retable configuration is contained within the elevation by various means, such as the large buttresses found in Santa Maria A Grande in Pontevedra. They indicate to the viewer that this is a simulated stone altarpiece cleverly applied to the front of the building for his or her admiration and astonishment. At St. Paul's there is no containment, no similar signalling to the beholder that its designer intended a metaphorical retable. Here the altarpiece simile seems to extend to the whole of the church's front. This fact would certainly make this façade unique, but would not necessarily exclude it from classification as a retable-façade.
Given the lack of primary sources that would justify such a classification one must largely rely on the visual evidence. The following section shows how an analysis of the façade's structure and of its iconography can lead to reasonable conclusions supporting this hypothesis.
Artists and Dates of Construction
Who the architect and artists of the surviving frontispiece were and when they built it is a question that has eluded scholars due to a lack of contemporary sources. These sources plainly state that the architect of the church was the Italian Jesuit Carlo Spinola and one can surmise that he drafted the design of the elevation, but no one really knows. Spinola died a martyr's death in 1622, before the construction of the façade.
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