Saturday, August 22, 2009

King's Chapel

The big draw in Cambridge, other than the university, is King's Chapel; not a cathedral, just a college chapel, but a major political statement, finished off by Henry VIII; begun a century earlier as a rather different sort of statement


West towers
  
West windows
  
What is extraordinary about King's is the fan vaulting, ordered personally 
by Henry, 2000 tons of it literally hanging from the roofing structure 
above via a sort of reverse arch system, most extensive in
England
 
Vaulting close-up; capstones weigh a ton each

There is also Rubens' Adoration of the Magi, the altar piece 
But the place is mostly about Henry, and His Church
  
And, look closely, "RA," Regina Anne (as in Boleyn)

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