THE BAROQUE IN ROMAN CATHOLIC COUNTRIES C. I6OO-C. 1760
naissance. Its source is the France of Louis XTV, as will be shown
later (see p. 168), He had started in the artillery force of the Prince-
Bishop of Wiirzburg. There he had shown a keen interest in mathe-
matics and fortification. Michelangelo too, it will be remembered,
had worked on the defence engineering, and some of the other
leading 16th-century architects in Italy, e.g. Sammicheli, had been
distinguished military engineers. The Prince-Bishop singled out
young Neumann for architectural work, made him his surveyor of
works and sent him to Paris and Vienna to discuss the plans for his
new palace at Wiirzburg with his opposite numbers there, the French
king's and the Emperor's architects, and to learn from them. Thus
his most famous work, the palace at Wiirzburg, is only partly his;
but his experience grew, and the Bishop appreciated him more and
more. He was made a captain, then a major, then a colonel, but
he had no longer any duties of active service and could devote all
his time to architecture. He did all the designing and supervising for
the Bishop that had to be done, and was soon also asked to design
palaces and churches for other clients.
Thus churches of the i8th century in Germany may originate from
very different milieus: the workshop of the mediaeval craftsman or
the drawing-board of the technically skilled courtier. Differences in
architectural character may often be explained in this way. Asam
churches are naive, Neumann's are of an intellectual complexity
equal to Bach's. Spatial effects, however, are as important in the
Asams' as in Neumann's work. But the Asams stick to the more
ostentatious devices of optical illusion (raising them, it is true, to a
high emotional pitch), while Neumann composes his configurations
of space scorning easy deceptions.
At Rohr near Ratisbon the Asams, instead of a High Altar, placed
in the chancel of the church a showpiece, cruder than Bernini's St.
Teresa, and twice as melodramatic: the Apostles, life-size figures
standing around a life-size Baroque sarcophagus, and the Virgin
rising to Heaven supported by angels to be received into a glory of
clouds and cherubs high above. Wild gesticulation and dark glowing
colour all help to inflame the passions of faith. The chancel at
Welfenburg, another church near Ratisbon, is the stage for a more
mysterious apparition: a silver St. George on horseback wielding
a flame-shaped sword and riding straight towards us out of a back-
ground of dazzling light which is let in from concealed windows.
The dragon and die princess stand out as dark golden silhouettes
134