| 内容記述 | Sir William Dugdale's The History of St.Paul's Cathedrel in London was published in 1658 in the Interregnum, when many royalists were excluded from public life, and were obliged to live privately and unobtrusively. Dugdale, as an antiquary, wanted to make his contemporaries aware of the sad condition of the most important church in London, which is also a symbol of the Church of England as a whole. The cathedral had been badly damaged by the enemies of the Anglican Church, and was in desperate need of restoration. Perhaps it would never be restored, for the Church of England was effectively extinct, after Parliament had outlawed its services, and invalidated its bishops. Dugdale published the book with illustrations by Wenceslaus Hollar which depicted the interior and the exterior of the cathedral, and showed many of the monuments to the great men of church and state, as they were in the prosperous years of the 1630s. This paperexamines St.Paul's as one of the most significant books in seventeenth-century book history. This is a good example of an early book illustrated with many artistic engraved plates which werepaid for by subscribers. By studying the relationship between the subscribers and their plates, which were often of a tomb of some notable person in the past, we can trace the historical background of the church or the political and religious milieux of the subscribers. Also, this study demonstrates that the book conveys a strong sense of royalism and Anglicanism. By a combination of the text and illustrations of the highest artistic standard, Dugdale conveys a message to hidden Anglicans all over the country. They must honour the memory of the Church, and hope it will be restored one day. In this respect this book bears great importance in the history of the book in the 17th century. |
