The History of Cities and Their ArchitectureSKY AND EARTH: discussion of the relationship between Sir Christopher Wren's Church of St Stephen's Walbrook and Agnolo's Allegory Bronzino with Venus and Cupid (also known as Venus, Cupid, Madness and Time). The current church was designed by Wren to replace an existing building destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. Built between 1672 and 1691, it is an example of English Baroque architecture and was hailed by Palladio as "the closed building the most proportionate in the world”2. The allegory with Venus and Cupid predates the church by a little over a century (painted around 1546)3. It is likely that it was commissioned by the Medici family and was then sent as a gift to King Francis I of France4. It is an example of the High Mannerism painting style that characterized the late Italian Renaissance. These two works use similar vocabulary, drawing on classical forms, but the rhetoric of each is very different. The painting is a tense and visceral image: it shows the complex agony of the desires of the flesh. It is explicit to the point of antagonism and, unusually, does not appear to be a simple moralistic, “anti-vice” allegory. The Church rejects the dramatic side of the picture. Wren's restrained baroque style is applied in a rational scheme emphasizing harmony, space and light. It is a refuge from the noisy, overcrowded, nauseating and inevitably earthy environment (in 1685 the north door of the building was bricked up against the odors of the slaughterhouses)6. By excluding the darkness and bustle of the streets, Wren provided an enclosure of purity for the parishioners of St Stephen's - a different take on Bronzino's allegory. One of the most striking...... middle of paper ...... omposition. The church, if it has a narrative, tells of God and an immaculate experience brought to Earth.BIBLIOGRAPHY1 http://ststephenwalbrook.net/history_masterpiece.htm (2013)2, 7 http://princevulpinelondonchurches.blogspot.co.uk/ 2013/04/st-stephen-walbrook.html (April 15, 2013)3 C. Bambach, J. Cox-Rearick, GR Goldner The drawings of Bronzino (2010), p.1464 http://www.nationalgallery.org. fr/paintings/bronzino-an-allegory-with-Venus-and-Cupid5 BA Oard, The Mirror of Mannerism, 2011 Essay: AGNOLO BRONZINO, AN ALLEGORY WITH VENUS AND CUPID, 1540-50 (National Gallery, London)6 S. Advantages, The History of the Manor (1922), p. 1197 see 28 R. Mayer, The Artist's Handbook of Techniques and Materials, 4th ed. (1976), p.112-1139 Ven. P. Delaney, Walbrook and the City of London: Reflections on Architecture (2011), p. 210 see 5