Progeny of Tholoses in the Architecture of Neoclassicism
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KNUV 2019; 1(59): 43-49 Tomasz Dziubecki Politechnika Białostocka PROGENY OF THOLOSES IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF NEOCLASSICISM. PART II* Summary The paper presents analyses of antique tholos tradition in Poland in the 18th century in relation to English architecture and in context of the antique tradition preceived via the Bramante’s Tempietto as well as iconographical sources in prints, drawings and paintings. Key words: tholos, architecture in Poland, antique and renaissance tradition. The question whether the palladianism in the United Kingdom could influence the architecture in Poland ‒ because of fascination of English gardens – is under discussion. It is worth to mention the Essay sur le Jardinage Anglois treatise of 1774 by August Moszyński, who wrote: “On a tant des desseins de Temples dans les livres qui traitent de cette sorte d’anciens monuments que chacun pourra en choisir a son goût”. However the fascination on English gardens was not without a critical attitude to its architecture. The royal architect Johann Christian Kamsetzer on his tour to Italy, France and England, arriving to London in 1782 first of all noted the difference between the muddy Paris and clean London. The only English building he mentioned in his letter to the king was the St. Paul’s Cathedral, which in his opinion could have been erected in Rome (Królikowska-Dziubecka 2017, p. 305-308). Kamsetzer created a large number of architectural drawings in Italy, few in Vienna and Paris but none from England. He was the only Polish architect who visited England, while all of them who were than active in Poland travelled to Italy. Princess Izabela Czartoryska, during her tour to Britain visiting the residence in Stowe on 12 of June of 1790 wrote: “The garden was once thought beautiful. It is, however, not well kept and there is an abundance of bad temples there” (Czartoryska 2015, p. 66). Thus it can be said the English architecture was not of special interest to the travellers from Poland with the exception of the gardens and pavillions there. In Poland the first tholos was designed in 1771 by the Saxon architect, Szymon Bogumił Zug (1733-1807), who arriving to Warsaw after 1756 was active for his entire life in Poland. It is important to indicate his journeys to * Part I was published in „Zeszyty Naukowe Uczelni Vistula” 2018, No. 61(4). 44 Tomasz Dziubecki Italy in 1754 (probably) and in 1771 (Kwiatkowski 1971, p. 10, 18-19). In the same 1771 Zug designed for prince Kazimierz Poniatowski, brother of the king Stanislaw August, a garden and residence in the Warsaw area called Solec, extended then on the nearby hill („Na Górze”). The picturesque garden, as many Warsaw royal and magantes’ residences since the 16th c., was beautifully located on the escarpment of the Vistula river. It consisted of many pavillions and one of them, built in 1776, was a “temple on Ionic columns”, which now can only be seen on one of water colours executed in 1785-1786 by Zygmunt Vogel (1764-1826). Between the pavillions called “”Minaret” and lantern of “Eliseum” there hardly can be recognised a tholos, if we compare it to the Zug’s drawing, where there is no drum, while the Tempietto has one. It was described by Zug (1848, p. 4-5). There is another project of a tholos by Zug, seen on his drawing dated ca. 1783, destined to Jabłonna, residence of the primate Michał Poniatowski, which according to Marek Kwiatkowski has some analogies with the Książęce designes (Kwiatkowski 1971, p. 95). Illustration 1. S.B. Zug, project for the pavilion Source: Print Room of the University of Warsaw Library, cat. no. 2275. After 1775 there was an idea to erect a church near to the Ujazdowski Castle, then a Warsaw private residence of the king. The tholos tradition was represented by design provided by Vicenzo Brenna in 1781. Progeny of Tholoses in the Architecture of Neoclassicism. Part II 45 Illustration 2. V. Brenna, project for the Ujazdowski church Source: Print Room of the University of Warsaw Library, cat. no. 9029. It reflects the project of monumental Carousel in Paris by Étienne-Louis Boullée of the same year – Brenna might have been seen in, as he arrived to Warsaw from Paris (Manikowska 2016, p. 67), which furthermore reflects the print of Pietro Santi Bartoli showing Prospetto dell’ antecedente Pianta e Spaccato della Mole Adriana. The church on Brenna’s drawing has an inscription of the freeze of the collonade: “DOMINE DILEXI DECOREM DOMUS TUE” of Psalm 26,8. Here we should mention a tholos built in 1787 in Paris at Parc Monceau: the Pavilion de Chartres designed by Ledoux. In Poland in the eightees also the royal architect Jakub Kubicki (1758-1833) was working on the Ujazdowski church, which finally in 1791 was to be erected as a Temple of the Divine Providence, conmemorating the declaration of the Third of May Constitution. That church was not built then, but few of the project drawings are preserved. Some of them show a tholos type structure, for example two drawings of Kubicki, whose project actually won that competition. In the eighties more tholos type structures appeared in Warsaw: one was part of a villa built for the royal painter Marcello Bacciarelli in Bagatela after 1783. The pavillion was probably worked up by Zug in cooperation with Kamsetzer (Kwiatkowski 1971, p. 99). It consisted of cylindrical cella and a cubic addition. The exterior wall was articulated with flat rustication and Ionic pilasters, its important feature is the conical type roof, altogether it resembles the Hercules temple at Forum Boarium (Kwiatkowski 1971, p. 99, the pavillion in the following years was extended into a villa, being subject to various reconstructions in 19th c. and finally was destroyed in the WWII). 46 Tomasz Dziubecki In 1780 there was created an example of a tholos in Saxony, in the residence in Pilnitz, called “English Pavillion” – this year Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, grandson of Augustus II the Strong, made the Pilnitz palace his summer residence, ordering creation an English garden, where the pavillion was built. However following the general design of Tempietto, the pavillion has significant differences. The exterior colonnade is in Ionic order, furthermore the columns are in pairs. The entablature of the drum is angulated over pairs of pilasters (with capitals close to Ionic order). In his Diary prince Stanisław Poniatowski wrote: “That place of no beautifull buildings nor gardens properly established is decorated, there is an English little garden [...] everywhere can be seen economics and lack of taste” (translated by T.D. from Poniatowski 2002, p. 143). In the adjacent to Saxony principality of Anhalt-Dessau, in 1790 in the residence of Wőrlitz of duke Leopold III, architect Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorf created the garden pavillion in form of tholos, which was to be used as a synagogue. The architecture of the pavillion follows the paradigm of Hercules temple at Forum Boarium (see Wischnitzer 1964, p. 158-159). Prince Stanisław Poniatowski on his journey through Germany in 1784 noticed the Wőrlitz residence reflects an English taste (Poniatowski 2002, p. 102). One of the most important tholoses in the architecture in Poland is the Sybil Temple by Christian Piotr Aigner erected in 1780-1800 as one of garden pavillions in the palace of the Czartoryski’s in Puławy. Illustration 3. The temple of Sybil in Puławy, Ch. P. Aigner Source: photo L. Sempoliński (IS PAN 200822). Regardless suggestions that its form could have been created under influence of the rotunda in Stowe (see: Jaroszewski 1970, p. 120-124, 186; Lorentz 1974, p. 14; also Gołębiewska 2000, p. 120), it was the Sybil temple in Progeny of Tholoses in the Architecture of Neoclassicism. Part II 47 Tivoli. During her tour in England Czartoryska visited Stowe on 12 June 1790, but in her diary she wrote “The garden is marvellous, if you belive to accepted opinion. However is badly maintained and to many poor temples there” (Czartoryska 2015. There should be remembered that Aigner did not know England, acquainted with Italian and French architecture). Princess Izabela Czartoryska declared herself the sample was the temple in Tivoli, refering to the name Sybil (though for example August Moszyński, an artistic advisor to the King Stanisław August Poniatowski, knew it was Vesta “unproperly called today Sybil” (Zboińska-Daszyńska 1970, p. 289.) The tholos in Puławy actually was given the same dimensions as the original one in Tivoli (Jaroszewski 1962, p. 73-75). The princess ordered the design for a purpose, writing: “...the name so appropriate to that place, where the real Sybillian books of historical remembrances, signs and auguries of the future were to be deposited...” (Lorentz 1974, p. 73, translated by T.D.). Furthermore in a letter to his son, prince Adam, she wrote: ”A propos my temple, which goes on, be so good and check one thing. Mr. P. St.O. says that in Tivoli, where the antique temple of Sybil, which I took model for the one of mine, there is an inn, and in that inn is an inn-keeper, and that inn-keeper possess an old altar from that temple, which he uses as a table. If it is so Mr. Adam, try to buy it for me (Duchińska 1891, p. 67; translated by T.D.). The Sybil Temple in Puławy was famous: count Stanisław Kostka Potocki, minister of the Government of Comission of Religious Confessions and Public Enlightment of the Kingdom of Poland, in 1816 wrote that Izabela Czartoryska “decorated (the garden in Puławy) with edifices, which make honour to our architecture, among them the Gothic castle and the temple of Tiburtine Sybil keep the first place...” (Potocki 1816, p.