BRITAIN AND FRANCE. l6TH TO l8TH CENTURY
were called later on, were never clearly defined. Michelangelo had
been Superintendent of the Papal Buildings; but nobody would
have considered such an appointment a full-time job. Now the
architectural office developed, and a system of training at the draw-
ing board and on the jobs.
Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646-1708) was the perfect type of the
official French architect, competent, quick and adaptable. In his
church of St. Louis des Invalides (pi. ixxxvn and fig. 86) of 1675-
1706 he achieved, just as Perrault did, that specific combination of
grandeur and elegance which is not to be found anywhere outside
France. The composition, externally and internally, is meant to be
taken as an improvement on Lemercier's Sorbonne and Levau's
College des Quatre Nations. The interior, except for the oval chancel,
is more academically balanceS, that is less dynamic in its spatial
relations, than the works of Hardouin-Mansart's predecessors. But
the dome is constructed so that in looking up one sees through a wide
opening in the inner cupola on to the painted surface of a second
cupok, lit by concealed windows—a wholly Baroque spatial efiect.
Examining now the facade one will become aware of its Baroque
qualities too, in spite of its seemingly correct portico with Doric
and Ionic orders. The free rhythmical spacing of the columns (taken
from Perrault) should be noted, and the graded advance in plan
towards the centre: first step from the walls to the columns of
the wings, second step to the columns on the sides of the portico
and third step to the four middle columns. Not only the Greeks
but also Palladio and even Vignola'would have deprecated this
strongly.
Sir Christopher Wren did not. His St. Paul's Cathedral of 1675-
1710 (pi. Lxxxvm and fig. 87) though apparently so much a monu-
ment to Classicism is in fact just as much a blend of the classical and
the Baroque as the Dome des Invalides. The dome of St. Paul's, one
of the most perfect in the world, is classical indeed. It has a more
reposeful outline than Michelangelo's and Hardouin-Mansart's.
The decoration with a colonnade round the drum is also character-
istically different from the projecting groups of columns and
broken entablatures of St. Peter's and the segment-headed windows
—so remarkably domestic-looking—and the slim, graceful shape of
the lantern of St. Louis's. But looking more closely, even there the
alternation of bays where columns flank niches, with bays where
they stand in front of loggias, introduces an element of unclassical
170