Wren's Preliminary Design for the Sheldonian Theatre

According to Sir Christopher Wren's son, writing many years after the events described, the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford (Figs 1-2) was to have been executed in a greater and better Style, with a View to the ancient Roman Grandeur discernible in the Theatre of Marcellus at Rome; but… [Wren] was obliged to put a Stop to the bolder Strokes of his Pencil, and confine the Expence within the Limits of a private Purse. That purse belonged to Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury and former warden of All Souls College, Oxford, whose willingness to finance the Theatre necessitated the scaling back of the project. Although Wren's initial scheme is currently presumed lost, an unidentified project for a theatre (Fig. 3), today amongst the Wren drawings at All Souls, can be associated with the original design. The drawing, together with newly discovered documents, sheds new and unexpected light on the early history of Wren's first major building.