The following post is based on my notes taken at a lecture at Blickling Hall delivered by Dr Vic Morgan of the University Of East Anglia (UEA) on 25/11/09. The lecture was entitled “Symbolism at Blickling Hall”. These notes are only an approximate transcript of the lecture because I have interpreted much of Dr. Morgan’s material, and supplemented it with interpolations. Therefore please approach these notes with caution. However, many thanks to Dr Morgan for an intriguing and stimulating lecture without which the following expanded commentary could not have got off the ground.
Introduction
The prodigy houses of the renaissance and Jacobean period were social spaces intended to convey status and meaning via architectural configuration and the trappings of decor. The symbolism inherent in the arrangement of space and use of decor were derived from a pervasive set of contemporary values and symbolic language. These values and symbols were European wide and constituted a guiding set of principles understood by all. This commonality of thought amongst Europeans meant that these values and their reification in architecture were implicitly understood by the people of the day, especially the aristocracy who were the peer group the owner of a prodigy house was trying to impress.
The residual medieval notion of everyone having their station in society and their respective work space was reflected in the layout of the house. The multitude of tasks demanded by the day to day running of the hall necessitated some complex layouts.
The corridor was absent in the houses of this time and only later introduced when there was a greater premium on personal privacy. The prodigy houses came out of the mediaeval period, a period when the great hall was the main focus, living area and banqueting room of the house. It was a very public space, being frequented by a Lord’s subjects and peer group (in mediaeval times invited guests may even have slept in the hall). This was to change in the course of the next 200 years from 1600 as society became more commercial, instrumental and individualised. In due course the hall of the house became vestigial, serving the purpose of a grand ante-chamber to the main action which was situated elsewhere in the building.
Each age is inextricably joined to its historical precursors and this is reflected in vestigial practices and artefacts that are not entirely lost in later stages of history. For example the medieval lord’s hall probably had its roots in the traditions of the Bronze Age and Iron Age, times when chieftains would occupy the largest structure in a village surrounded by their lieutenants and cohorts; the latter would frequent the chieftain’s one room house in order to receive instructions. In the more socially integrated and intimate societies of ancient times the chieftain achieved privacy in his relatively public living space by means of niches and screens. In short, the Bronze Age chieftain’s large round house is the precursor of the prodigy house.
The building of prodigy houses was driven by two key human motivations: Aggrandisement and emulation. The monarchies of European countries endeavoured to set themselves both apart and above the rank and file nobility, thus fuelling the drive to create buildings that made overwhelming statements about the high status, wealth and power of the monarch. In turn the nobility sought to emulate these high status buildings.
The countries of Europe where linked by a diplomatic service and a flow of printed material. In particular printing made available relatively cheap architectural images (Printing was first used in Europe in the mid fifteenth century). These features facilitated communication, freeing up the flow of ideas and fashions in architecture. The diplomatic service kept alive interest in what one’s neighbours were up to, thus leading to an aristocratic version of keeping up with the Joneses.
Architectural features common to houses of the Renaissance period were: 1. The Piano Nobile, 2. The Escalier, 3. The Enfilade, and 4. The King’s side and Queen’s side. (The latter is not dealt with in these notes)
The Piano Nobile.
This was the floor on which the prestige rooms were situated. These rooms were usually to be found on the first floor (or at least found on a raised basement above ground level; my own observations sug
gests that “raised floor” is the generic concept covering most cases), thus employing all the symbolic connotations of height. This floor was distinguished by larger windows and decorative embellishments. Even some 20th century prestige buildings have their main living space above ground level.
For its day Blickling hall is somewhat retrograde in its design (unlike the earlier Elizabethan Hardwick hall). The layout of the hall is reminiscent of a castle. This may have had something to do with the fact that the hall had to fit on the footprint of the old house and was thus constrained by the moat. The principle room (i.e. the great hall) is on the ground floor. At yet in having a raised piano nobile the ground floor location of the great hall creates a fitting tension between the passing medieval ethos and the later taste for raised floor living. Blickling hall looks both forward and backward. A much less equivocal treatment of raised floor living can be found at the 18th century Palladian structure of Holkham hall. Blickling was built at the same time Inigo Jones was carrying out his first essays in the use of a very systematic application of classical elements that was to become the Palladian style of the 1720 ~ 1760 period. In fashionable terms, then, Blickling hall was moving into obsolescence as soon as it was built. But its haphazard collection of classical features was soon to receive an internal makeover when the 18th century neo-classicists moved in and took the obsession with system and symmetry to new heights.
The Escalier
The escalier is the stai
rcase required to reach the raised piano nobile. Grandeur in the design of the escalier was used to the full in order to convey the status of the home owner. These stairs may be external or internal. They were used for the reception of ambassadors and visitors and crafted around the theatre of diplomacy. The willingness of the home owner to deign to meet a diplomat or visitor could be signalled in how far the owner was prepared to go in his condescension of the escalier. The original escalier of Blickling at the east end of the great hall was established within these traditions. Only later in the 18th century did the architect Thomas Ivory design and build a symmetrical staircase that made a more obviously superlative statement with the purpose of awing the visitor. By then lords no longer lived at the dais end of the great hall, but somewhere “up there” in a nether world beyond the grand staircase.
The Enfilade
The enfilade is a linear suite of rooms whereby access to each room could only be achieved by walking through the preceding rooms. The rooms became more private as one moved through the sequence. The doors of
the rooms were lined up so that it was possible to look down the entire suite, thus showing off the dimension of the range to full effect. The prodigy houses follow this principle. The sequencing proceeds from the most public rooms to the most private rooms and roughly follows the order below.
Hall: The main focus and social centre of the building, later to become an impressive antechamber to the rooms where the real action took place.
Parlour: A smaller more intimate room than the hall allowing for the entertainment and private conversation with selected guests.
Great Chamber: Of medieval origin this room is where the owner of the house dinned and slept.
Drawing Room: As the grandeur of the great chamber evolved it lost its privacy and intimacy. In order to restore the latter, rooms of greater privacy budded off. These more private spaces were preceded by an ante chamber that became the drawing room. In later times it became a private sitting room.
State Bedroom(s): As the great chamber lost its privacy and intimacy the state bedroom eventually became the sleeping quarter of the house.
Closet: Once again increasing public encroachment forced the budding off of even more private rooms for dressing and preparation etc.
Long Gallery: A large well lit walking and recreation area for all guests and visitors.
At Blickling (circa 1620) Sir Henry Hobart’s architect Robert Lyminge had to work around the constraints of the site, most notably the moat of the original house which imposed a short side view of the hall from the south. Lyminge also incorporated the older structures of the original house on the north and west sides of his design, finishing off the early Tudor west range with a tower in order to give an integrated appearance. Later in the 18th century Georgian architect Thomas Ivory, in an act of sympathetic retro styling, remodelled the west wing making it look more Jacobean, thus effectively finishing off Lyminge’s concept. (However, in my opinion the clean elegance, system and symmetry of the Georgian taste has produced a rather austere range that doesn’t go well with the more fussy Jacobean style.) The plaster work in the ceiling of the northeast tower may reflect the original pattern of the parterre garden. Lyminge was immersed in European wide fashions and styles and incorporated these styles and fashions into the building of Blickling, thus signalling its prodigy house status.
(click to enlarge)
This schematic shows how access to the rooms of the house is sequenced. Using an even more abbreviated schematic this sequencing could be represented with a system of concentric circles, where a visitor’s distance from the centre of the system is an indication of the level of privilege bestowed on the visitor. This concentric pattern of access privilege is very general and is particularly clear in the design of temples and religious monuments. It is as applicable today as it was then.
Query/Puzzle: Compare the above diagram with Page 11 of the 1978 Blickling Hall guide which states: “The arrangement was unusual by Elizabethan standards, since the entrance to the hall was placed in the centre, rather than at one end leading into a screens passage”
Some houses are “time capsule” houses; that is, they are frozen relics of the time in which they are built. Blickling hall on the other hand is a “palimpsest” house in that it has been reused and overlaid again and again. It effectively embodies and tracks the evolution of changes in the fashions of human society. It is not a snap shot in time, but rather an accretion of layers; an object smeared out over a long period of time. I personally find these “palimpsest” houses more interesting than those frozen in time: They embody subtle and sometimes enigmatic clues as to their history; quirks of design that only make sense in the light of their evolution. For example, citing an historical reference and also the partitioning of the Long Gallery wall at Blickling, Dr. Morgan suggested that a much deeper and more elaborate frieze once existed in the Long Gallery than is now seen. These teasing clues hinting at a hard to get mystery hold a greater fascination than that which is clearly presented.
Symbolic Decoration.
Sir Henry Hobart and his architect Lyminge were also into esoteric symbolism, a symbolism understood by the intellectual elite of the day whose centre was London. Many of the great houses copied features and symbols from London houses which have long since been demolished. Sir Henry Hobart moved in these central intellectual circles which included Ben Johnson. Lavish use of symbolism is most prolific in the public areas of the house. The symbols where not intended to be glanced at, but their meanings contemplated. These symbols often carried moral messages. There was also a linkage of hall and garden patterns that is now lost, of course.
The Jacobeans a
bhorred blank spaces and filled them with symbols. Many of the symbols were copied from printed pattern books which where adapted across Europe. Hence the symbols used at Blickling often look suspiciously like those found in European prints (See the front door “bondage” figure for example. See also Serlios “Five books of architecture”). Some of the patterns used are whimsical. One particular pattern at Blickling shows a wood structure realised in stone work. The stonework retains a representation of the nail that held the wooden parts together. Thus at Blickling a artisan’s prosaic necessity becomes a decoration. This is reminiscent of ancient Egyptian practices of creating mock structures in stone, such as pillars made from bunches of reeds.
The Jacobean use of symbolism was very piece meal, ad-hoc and fussy; unlike the later English Palladian movement which was very systematic and frugal in the use of pattern.
Also to be found in renaissance houses was personal symbolism which was used by the owner to convey his values; see for example the personifications of Justice and prudence at the entrance of Blickling hall. Also on the west side Dutch ends we find the mythical figures of Atlas bearing the burdens of the world and Hercules. These where well known parts of the symbolic dictionary of the day and were used by home owners to make a statement about themselves.
Remarks, Observations and Reflections
1. Status, fashion and style were and are huge motivators. Materialism is much less a case of hoarding creature comforts to oneself than about them being a form of symbolism that make statements about one’s place in the social scheme of things; what others think about you is very important, and if you are rich enough to take control of that thinking by means of status symbols, then overstatement and extravagance are likely outcomes. But ‘more’ is not necessarily ‘more’ and sometimes subtler statements that allude to one’s culture and learning are also called for; in particular symbolism that indicates one’s initiation into select and elite communities may be sought for. Mind you, there is, however, a dilemma to manage here. In boasting one’s status there goes along with it the risk of appearing to be playing above one’s station in one’s target peer group. It’s another version of the prisoner’s dilemma; either one swings in with one’s supportive peer group or defects by sending out signals of superiority and the desire to get one over on them.
2. Blickling hall is a bit like a piece of Geology; in some areas time has completely erased older layers to be replaced by newer layers. In other places old structures are still present but have been layered on top by later periods. In some places relict layers have been recovered. All told Blickling hall is a testament to changes in fashion, human thinking and the forward march of a history; a march that seldom leaves things unchanged. In the wake of this change enigmatic clues are left for the clever interpreter to understand. And yet it has fallen to the National Trust to carry out the difficult task, Canute like, of doing its best to halt the eroding seas of time and preserve the country’s treasures. For the NT the motivation is no longer status, but heritage.
3. For me personally one interesting if not significant fact is that Blickling hall was built not long after Kepler had published his 3 laws of planetary motion. Kepler, like Blickling hall itself, looked both back to the past and forward to the future. In line with the renaissance ethos of the day for Kepler preferred to think of symbols not just as pretty patterns, but deeply meaningful signs. It is therefore not surprising to find that Kepler’s first published attempt at understanding the planetary configuration employed esoteric symbolism. This attempt dates to 1596 (predating his three laws) with the publication of his “The Mystery of the Universe”. In this publication he propounded the notion that the proportions of the orbits of the five known planets could be derived from an elegant concentric nesting of the five regular solids. Today this layout seems a fluky mathematical curio but to Kepler, who was imbued with renaissance ideas of the symbolic and mystical significance of the five regular solids in all their mathematical perfection, this scheme pointed to a divine plan. For Kepler this apparent concentric cosmic “ground plan” must have signalled something about the character of the Divine sentience behind it, just as the symbols of a renaissance house told something of its owner. In renaissance Europe minds met in the appreciation of mystical symbols. Thus for Kepler his scheme was a meeting of the minds of God and man.
4. It is perhaps not surprising that “The Mystery of the Universe” made Kepler’s name because it readily connected with the renaissance mind. Needless to say, today we remember Kepler less for his concentro-symbolic solar system than for his three laws. Kepler, however, must have been puzzled when he discovered these laws, laws which employed not esoteric symbolism but eccentricity and ellipses. In due time they proved to be the better device for joining the dots of observation than his initial mathematical symbolism. Kepler’s laws portended the future of science, but if these laws had any meaning it must have eluded Kepler. It was the first indication that tracking down the divine plan wasn’t going to be found in obvious symbols plastered across the cosmos and that plan was going to turn out to be a much more slippery customer altogether. In short the cosmos was going to prove to be no renaissance house writ large. Still, it’s just as well; if Kepler had cleared the board in 1596 what mystery would we have to ponder on today? If anything, since late renaissance times, the mystery of the cosmos has deepened.
Introduction
The prodigy houses of the renaissance and Jacobean period were social spaces intended to convey status and meaning via architectural configuration and the trappings of decor. The symbolism inherent in the arrangement of space and use of decor were derived from a pervasive set of contemporary values and symbolic language. These values and symbols were European wide and constituted a guiding set of principles understood by all. This commonality of thought amongst Europeans meant that these values and their reification in architecture were implicitly understood by the people of the day, especially the aristocracy who were the peer group the owner of a prodigy house was trying to impress.
The residual medieval notion of everyone having their station in society and their respective work space was reflected in the layout of the house. The multitude of tasks demanded by the day to day running of the hall necessitated some complex layouts.
The corridor was absent in the houses of this time and only later introduced when there was a greater premium on personal privacy. The prodigy houses came out of the mediaeval period, a period when the great hall was the main focus, living area and banqueting room of the house. It was a very public space, being frequented by a Lord’s subjects and peer group (in mediaeval times invited guests may even have slept in the hall). This was to change in the course of the next 200 years from 1600 as society became more commercial, instrumental and individualised. In due course the hall of the house became vestigial, serving the purpose of a grand ante-chamber to the main action which was situated elsewhere in the building.
Each age is inextricably joined to its historical precursors and this is reflected in vestigial practices and artefacts that are not entirely lost in later stages of history. For example the medieval lord’s hall probably had its roots in the traditions of the Bronze Age and Iron Age, times when chieftains would occupy the largest structure in a village surrounded by their lieutenants and cohorts; the latter would frequent the chieftain’s one room house in order to receive instructions. In the more socially integrated and intimate societies of ancient times the chieftain achieved privacy in his relatively public living space by means of niches and screens. In short, the Bronze Age chieftain’s large round house is the precursor of the prodigy house.
The building of prodigy houses was driven by two key human motivations: Aggrandisement and emulation. The monarchies of European countries endeavoured to set themselves both apart and above the rank and file nobility, thus fuelling the drive to create buildings that made overwhelming statements about the high status, wealth and power of the monarch. In turn the nobility sought to emulate these high status buildings.
The countries of Europe where linked by a diplomatic service and a flow of printed material. In particular printing made available relatively cheap architectural images (Printing was first used in Europe in the mid fifteenth century). These features facilitated communication, freeing up the flow of ideas and fashions in architecture. The diplomatic service kept alive interest in what one’s neighbours were up to, thus leading to an aristocratic version of keeping up with the Joneses.
Architectural features common to houses of the Renaissance period were: 1. The Piano Nobile, 2. The Escalier, 3. The Enfilade, and 4. The King’s side and Queen’s side. (The latter is not dealt with in these notes)
The Piano Nobile.
This was the floor on which the prestige rooms were situated. These rooms were usually to be found on the first floor (or at least found on a raised basement above ground level; my own observations sug
gests that “raised floor” is the generic concept covering most cases), thus employing all the symbolic connotations of height. This floor was distinguished by larger windows and decorative embellishments. Even some 20th century prestige buildings have their main living space above ground level.For its day Blickling hall is somewhat retrograde in its design (unlike the earlier Elizabethan Hardwick hall). The layout of the hall is reminiscent of a castle. This may have had something to do with the fact that the hall had to fit on the footprint of the old house and was thus constrained by the moat. The principle room (i.e. the great hall) is on the ground floor. At yet in having a raised piano nobile the ground floor location of the great hall creates a fitting tension between the passing medieval ethos and the later taste for raised floor living. Blickling hall looks both forward and backward. A much less equivocal treatment of raised floor living can be found at the 18th century Palladian structure of Holkham hall. Blickling was built at the same time Inigo Jones was carrying out his first essays in the use of a very systematic application of classical elements that was to become the Palladian style of the 1720 ~ 1760 period. In fashionable terms, then, Blickling hall was moving into obsolescence as soon as it was built. But its haphazard collection of classical features was soon to receive an internal makeover when the 18th century neo-classicists moved in and took the obsession with system and symmetry to new heights.
The Escalier
The escalier is the stai
rcase required to reach the raised piano nobile. Grandeur in the design of the escalier was used to the full in order to convey the status of the home owner. These stairs may be external or internal. They were used for the reception of ambassadors and visitors and crafted around the theatre of diplomacy. The willingness of the home owner to deign to meet a diplomat or visitor could be signalled in how far the owner was prepared to go in his condescension of the escalier. The original escalier of Blickling at the east end of the great hall was established within these traditions. Only later in the 18th century did the architect Thomas Ivory design and build a symmetrical staircase that made a more obviously superlative statement with the purpose of awing the visitor. By then lords no longer lived at the dais end of the great hall, but somewhere “up there” in a nether world beyond the grand staircase.The Enfilade
The enfilade is a linear suite of rooms whereby access to each room could only be achieved by walking through the preceding rooms. The rooms became more private as one moved through the sequence. The doors of
the rooms were lined up so that it was possible to look down the entire suite, thus showing off the dimension of the range to full effect. The prodigy houses follow this principle. The sequencing proceeds from the most public rooms to the most private rooms and roughly follows the order below.Hall: The main focus and social centre of the building, later to become an impressive antechamber to the rooms where the real action took place.
Parlour: A smaller more intimate room than the hall allowing for the entertainment and private conversation with selected guests.
Great Chamber: Of medieval origin this room is where the owner of the house dinned and slept.
Drawing Room: As the grandeur of the great chamber evolved it lost its privacy and intimacy. In order to restore the latter, rooms of greater privacy budded off. These more private spaces were preceded by an ante chamber that became the drawing room. In later times it became a private sitting room.
State Bedroom(s): As the great chamber lost its privacy and intimacy the state bedroom eventually became the sleeping quarter of the house.
Closet: Once again increasing public encroachment forced the budding off of even more private rooms for dressing and preparation etc.
Long Gallery: A large well lit walking and recreation area for all guests and visitors.
At Blickling (circa 1620) Sir Henry Hobart’s architect Robert Lyminge had to work around the constraints of the site, most notably the moat of the original house which imposed a short side view of the hall from the south. Lyminge also incorporated the older structures of the original house on the north and west sides of his design, finishing off the early Tudor west range with a tower in order to give an integrated appearance. Later in the 18th century Georgian architect Thomas Ivory, in an act of sympathetic retro styling, remodelled the west wing making it look more Jacobean, thus effectively finishing off Lyminge’s concept. (However, in my opinion the clean elegance, system and symmetry of the Georgian taste has produced a rather austere range that doesn’t go well with the more fussy Jacobean style.) The plaster work in the ceiling of the northeast tower may reflect the original pattern of the parterre garden. Lyminge was immersed in European wide fashions and styles and incorporated these styles and fashions into the building of Blickling, thus signalling its prodigy house status.
(click to enlarge)Query/Puzzle: Compare the above diagram with Page 11 of the 1978 Blickling Hall guide which states: “The arrangement was unusual by Elizabethan standards, since the entrance to the hall was placed in the centre, rather than at one end leading into a screens passage”
Some houses are “time capsule” houses; that is, they are frozen relics of the time in which they are built. Blickling hall on the other hand is a “palimpsest” house in that it has been reused and overlaid again and again. It effectively embodies and tracks the evolution of changes in the fashions of human society. It is not a snap shot in time, but rather an accretion of layers; an object smeared out over a long period of time. I personally find these “palimpsest” houses more interesting than those frozen in time: They embody subtle and sometimes enigmatic clues as to their history; quirks of design that only make sense in the light of their evolution. For example, citing an historical reference and also the partitioning of the Long Gallery wall at Blickling, Dr. Morgan suggested that a much deeper and more elaborate frieze once existed in the Long Gallery than is now seen. These teasing clues hinting at a hard to get mystery hold a greater fascination than that which is clearly presented.
Symbolic Decoration.
Sir Henry Hobart and his architect Lyminge were also into esoteric symbolism, a symbolism understood by the intellectual elite of the day whose centre was London. Many of the great houses copied features and symbols from London houses which have long since been demolished. Sir Henry Hobart moved in these central intellectual circles which included Ben Johnson. Lavish use of symbolism is most prolific in the public areas of the house. The symbols where not intended to be glanced at, but their meanings contemplated. These symbols often carried moral messages. There was also a linkage of hall and garden patterns that is now lost, of course.
The Jacobeans a
bhorred blank spaces and filled them with symbols. Many of the symbols were copied from printed pattern books which where adapted across Europe. Hence the symbols used at Blickling often look suspiciously like those found in European prints (See the front door “bondage” figure for example. See also Serlios “Five books of architecture”). Some of the patterns used are whimsical. One particular pattern at Blickling shows a wood structure realised in stone work. The stonework retains a representation of the nail that held the wooden parts together. Thus at Blickling a artisan’s prosaic necessity becomes a decoration. This is reminiscent of ancient Egyptian practices of creating mock structures in stone, such as pillars made from bunches of reeds.The Jacobean use of symbolism was very piece meal, ad-hoc and fussy; unlike the later English Palladian movement which was very systematic and frugal in the use of pattern.
Also to be found in renaissance houses was personal symbolism which was used by the owner to convey his values; see for example the personifications of Justice and prudence at the entrance of Blickling hall. Also on the west side Dutch ends we find the mythical figures of Atlas bearing the burdens of the world and Hercules. These where well known parts of the symbolic dictionary of the day and were used by home owners to make a statement about themselves.
Remarks, Observations and Reflections
1. Status, fashion and style were and are huge motivators. Materialism is much less a case of hoarding creature comforts to oneself than about them being a form of symbolism that make statements about one’s place in the social scheme of things; what others think about you is very important, and if you are rich enough to take control of that thinking by means of status symbols, then overstatement and extravagance are likely outcomes. But ‘more’ is not necessarily ‘more’ and sometimes subtler statements that allude to one’s culture and learning are also called for; in particular symbolism that indicates one’s initiation into select and elite communities may be sought for. Mind you, there is, however, a dilemma to manage here. In boasting one’s status there goes along with it the risk of appearing to be playing above one’s station in one’s target peer group. It’s another version of the prisoner’s dilemma; either one swings in with one’s supportive peer group or defects by sending out signals of superiority and the desire to get one over on them.
2. Blickling hall is a bit like a piece of Geology; in some areas time has completely erased older layers to be replaced by newer layers. In other places old structures are still present but have been layered on top by later periods. In some places relict layers have been recovered. All told Blickling hall is a testament to changes in fashion, human thinking and the forward march of a history; a march that seldom leaves things unchanged. In the wake of this change enigmatic clues are left for the clever interpreter to understand. And yet it has fallen to the National Trust to carry out the difficult task, Canute like, of doing its best to halt the eroding seas of time and preserve the country’s treasures. For the NT the motivation is no longer status, but heritage.
3. For me personally one interesting if not significant fact is that Blickling hall was built not long after Kepler had published his 3 laws of planetary motion. Kepler, like Blickling hall itself, looked both back to the past and forward to the future. In line with the renaissance ethos of the day for Kepler preferred to think of symbols not just as pretty patterns, but deeply meaningful signs. It is therefore not surprising to find that Kepler’s first published attempt at understanding the planetary configuration employed esoteric symbolism. This attempt dates to 1596 (predating his three laws) with the publication of his “The Mystery of the Universe”. In this publication he propounded the notion that the proportions of the orbits of the five known planets could be derived from an elegant concentric nesting of the five regular solids. Today this layout seems a fluky mathematical curio but to Kepler, who was imbued with renaissance ideas of the symbolic and mystical significance of the five regular solids in all their mathematical perfection, this scheme pointed to a divine plan. For Kepler this apparent concentric cosmic “ground plan” must have signalled something about the character of the Divine sentience behind it, just as the symbols of a renaissance house told something of its owner. In renaissance Europe minds met in the appreciation of mystical symbols. Thus for Kepler his scheme was a meeting of the minds of God and man.
4. It is perhaps not surprising that “The Mystery of the Universe” made Kepler’s name because it readily connected with the renaissance mind. Needless to say, today we remember Kepler less for his concentro-symbolic solar system than for his three laws. Kepler, however, must have been puzzled when he discovered these laws, laws which employed not esoteric symbolism but eccentricity and ellipses. In due time they proved to be the better device for joining the dots of observation than his initial mathematical symbolism. Kepler’s laws portended the future of science, but if these laws had any meaning it must have eluded Kepler. It was the first indication that tracking down the divine plan wasn’t going to be found in obvious symbols plastered across the cosmos and that plan was going to turn out to be a much more slippery customer altogether. In short the cosmos was going to prove to be no renaissance house writ large. Still, it’s just as well; if Kepler had cleared the board in 1596 what mystery would we have to ponder on today? If anything, since late renaissance times, the mystery of the cosmos has deepened.
3D Ground plan of the Cosmic Enfilade: Science and the renaissance taste for mystical and deeply meaningful symbolism came together briefly at the end of the sixteenth century, with the publication of Kepler’s “The Mystery of the Universe” in 1596.
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