Museum

Museum

Introduction

Art plays an important role in the life of a man and sometimes it is next to impossible to live without it. It is natural that the first thing that comes to my mind at the mention of the word `art' is museums.

A museum is a stock of the world's masterpieces, it is the place, where you can enrich knowledge, you can look at the achievements of mankind, and you can satisfy your aesthetic taste. Museums give the possibility to be always in touch with the past and every time discovers something new for you. Besides, museums play an important role in the life of any nation. A museum is just the right place to find out lots of interesting things about history, traditions and habits of different peoples. One may find in museums papers, photos, books, scripts, works of art, personal things of famous people etc. All this helps us to better understand historical events, scientific discoveries, character and deeds of well-known personalities.

I think museums somehow effect the formation of personality, his outlook. Every educated person is sure to understand the great significance of museums in our life, especially nowadays; when after the humdrum of everyday life you may go to your favourite museum, relax there with your body and soul and acquire inner harmony and balance.

I am a regular museum-goer. In fact I visited no less than 20 museums. Among them: the Louver, the National Gallery, the Shakespeare House in Stratford-on Avon, the Oxford story exhibition, Museum of Reading, Madam Tussaud's Exhibition, the Tretyakov Gallery and others. We can hardly find a town in our country without its «Fine Arts» Museum. I've been in Voronezh, Kislovodsk, Essentuky and some other regional museums.

Now I want to write about the Tretyakov Gallery, Windsor Castle, Westminster Abbey, Buckinngham Palace and Hermitage, about their history and their collections.

The Hermitage

The State Hermitage in St. Petersburg ranks among the world's most outstanding art museums. It is the largest museum in Russia: nowadays its vast and varied collections take up four buildings; its rooms if stretched in one line would measure many miles in total length, while they cover an area of 94240 square meters. Over 300 rooms are open to the public and contain a rich selection from the museum's collections numbering about 2500000 items. The earliest exhibits Date from 500000-300000B.C., the latest are modern works.The collections possessed by the museum are distributed among its seven departments and form over forty permanent exhibitions. A common feature, characterising these exhibitions is the arrangement of items (all of them originals) according to countries and schools in a strictly chronological order, with a view to illustrating almost every stage of human culture and every great art epoch from the prehistoric times to the 20th century.

Fabulous treasures are gathered in the Museum. It contains a rare collection of specimens of Soythian culture and art; objects of great aesthetic and historical value found in the burial mounds of the Altai; a most complete representation of exhibits characterising Russian culture and art. The Oriental collections of the Museum, ranking among the richest in the world, give an idea of the culture and art of the people of the Near and the Far East; India, China, Byzantium and Iran, are best represented; remarkable materials illustrative of the culture and art of the peoples inhabiting the Caucasus and Central Asia, also from part of the collections of the Department. The Museum numbers among its treasures monuments of ancient Greece and Rome and those from the Greek settlements on the North coast of the Black Sea.World famous is the collection of West-European paintings, covering a span of about seven hundred years, from the 13th to the 20th century, and comprising works by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, El Greco, Velazquez, Murillo; outstanding paintings by Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens; a remarkable group of French eighteenth century canvases, and Impressionist and Post Impressionist paintings. The collection illustrates the art of Italy, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and some other countries. The West European Department of the Museum also includes a fine collection of European sculpture, containing works by Michelangelo, Canova, Falkonet, Houdon, Rodin and many other eminent masters; a marvellous collection of prints and drawings, numbering about 600 000 items; arms and armour; one of the world most outstanding collections of applied art, rich in tapestries, furniture, lace, ivories, porcelain metalwork, bronzes, silver, jewellery and enamels. An important part among the museum possessions is taken by the numismatic collection, which numbers over 1 000 000 items and is regarded as one of the largest in the world. A permanent exhibition of coins, orders and medals is open on the 2nd floor, rooms 398-400. There are auxiliary displays of coins forming part of exhibitions in other departments as well. A temporary exhibition of West-European medals is on view in the Raphael Loggias (1st floor, room 227).

The seven departments of the museum, i.e. the Department of Russian Culture, Primitive culture, Culture and Art of the peoples of the Soviet East, Culture and Art of the Foreign Countries of the East, Culture and Art of the Antique World, West-European Art, Numismatics, together with the Education Department, the Conservation Department and the Library determine the administrative and academic structure of the museum.

Within the past few decades the Hermitage has become one of the country's most important centres of art study with a research staff of about 200 historians carrying out a vast program of research on art problems, and responsible for the preservation of the museum treasures, their conservation and restoration, and also for the scientific popularisation of art. The results of this varied work are published in the form of books, articles, periodicals, pamphlets, etc.

Since 1949 a post-graduate school has been functioning at the Hermitage, specialists in art working here at their theses.An important aspect of the Museum's research activities is the work of the annual archaeological expeditions organised by the Museum either independently or in co-operation with other Soviet scientific institutions. The most notable among them are: the Kazmir-Blur expedition making excavations of the city of Taishebaini dating from the 7th century B.C and situated on the Kazmir-Blur hill near Erevan; the Chersonese and Nymphaeum expeditions working on the sites of the ancient Greek towns in the Crimea, the Tadjik, Altai, Pskov and some other expeditions.The material discovered by them is of exceptional value, for not only does it throw fresh light on the problems of the history of the art and culture, but it also serves to enrich the Hermitage collections.

Most helpful in the Museum's research work is the Hermitage Library which contains about 400 000 books, pamphlets, periodicals, and is one of the largest among the art libraries in Russia. It was started in the 18th century and contains works on all branches of fine and applied arts. In addition to the Central Library each Department has at its disposal a subsidiary library of special literature. Of these, the library of the Hermitage exchanges books with a number of Russian and foreign museums. It is open to every student of art.All these are but a few aspects of the varied work carried out by the Museum and constantly achieving still greater scope and a few forms, meeting the growing cultural demands of the Russian people.

The making of the collection

Although visited now by thousands of people the Museum traditionally retains the old name of the Hermitage attached to it in the 1760's and meaning «a hermit's dwelling», or «a solitary place». The name is due to the fact that the Hermitage was founded as a palace museum accessible only to the nearest of the near to the court.

A number of objects of which but a small part was later incorporated in the museum's collections were acquired in different countries by Peter I. These were antique statues Marine landscapes, land a collection of Siberian ancient gold buckles. However, the foundation of the Hermitage is usually dated to the year 1764 when a collection of 225 pictures was bought by Catherine II from the Prussian merchant Gotzkowsky.

A feature characteristic of the 18th century accusations was the purchase of large groups of paintings, sometimes of complete galleries, bought en blok at the sales in Western Europe.Count Bruhl's collection acquired in Dresden in 1769, the Gallery of Crozat, bought in Paris in 1772 and the gallery of Lord Walpole acquired in London in 1779 were the most prominent among the acquisitions made in the 18th century. Together with numerous purchases of individual pictures, they supplied the museum with most outstanding canvases of the European school, including those by Rembraandt, Rubens, Van Dyck and other eminent artists, and made the Hermitage rank among the finest art galleries of Europe. Works, commissioned by the Russian court from European painters also enriched the Picture gallery. By 1785 the Museum numbered 2658 paintings. Prints and drawings, cameos, coins and medals were likewise represented at the Hermitage.

The acquisition of complete collections and of individual works of art was continued in the 19th century but on a more modest scale than during the previous period. Among the most notable acquisitions of the 19th century were: Mathew Malmaison Gallery of the Empress Josephine bought in 1814; the collection of the English banker Coesvelt consisting mainly of Spanish paintings, purchased in Amsterdam the same year; as well as the paintings from the Barrbarigo Palace inVenice which gave the Museum its best Titians.

As to the individual works of art, the acquisition in 1865 of Leonardo da Vince's «Madonna Litta»fromthe Duce of Litta collection and the purchase of Raphael's «Virgin and Child» from the Conestebite family in 1870, were important landmarks in the growth of the treasures of the Hermitage.

In 1885 the Hermitage received an important collection of objects of applied art of the 12th - 26th centuries, gathered by Basilevsky; , together with the Armoury transferred from Tsarskoe Selo, notably enriched the Museum with a new type of material.

The first decade of the 20th century witnessed the acquisition of a magnificent collection including 730 canvases by the Dutch and Flemish artists, which had been in the possession of the eminent Russian scientist Semenov-Tienshansky. Another most important acquisition was Leonardo da Vinci's «Madonna and Child» purchased in 1914 from the family of the architect L.Benois.

The Great October Revolution created highly favourable conditions for the further growth of the Museum collections and their systematic study. Since October 1917, due to the care taken by Soviet Government for the preservation of art treasures, the Museum was enriched with a great number of first-class works of art. Among these were the best pictures chosen by the Hermitage the nationalised private collections such as those formerly owned by the Yussupovs, the Shuvalovs, the Stroganovs; paintings transferred from the imperial palaces; art treasures, acquired by exchange from other museums within the country.

The policy of planned distribution of art treasures among the museums carried out by the state, enabled the Hermitage not only to fill up many gaps and deficiencies by adding to its picture gallery Italian paintings of the 13th-15th centuries, works of the Netherlandish school, and of the French school of the 19th and 20th centuries but to form a museum free from private taste, and made it possible to arrange the collections systematically. The accumulation of materials which had not been represented in the museum in the pre-Revolutionary period, led to the formation of new departments: the department of the history of culture and art of the primitive society, of the culture and art of the peoples of the East, and that of the history of Russian culture.

His immense growth of the collections made it necessary to extend the exhibition space this is why the building of the Winter Palace was placed at the disposal of the Hermitage, the name «The State Hermitage» being now applied to the whole great museum thus formed.

British school

The Hermitage is one of the very few on the Continent which contains a special section for English pictures.Portraiture, landscape painting and satire art in which England excelled , are represented by a number of first-class paintings and prints executed by the most outstanding artists of British School, mainly of the 18th century. A number of 17th-19th century works are on show too. There are also some notable specimens of applied art, among which is a fine group of objects in silver and Wedgwood potteryware. English paintings of the 17th century are extremely rare outside England.The Hermitage possesses several works of this period. These are: the Portrait of Oliver Cromwell by Robert Walker, two portraits by Peter Lely, of which the «Portrait of a Woman» reveals the artist's sense of colour to great advantage; also the «Portrait of Grinling Gibbons» by Godfrey Kneller, to name only the most outstanding canvases.The collection has no paintings by William Hogarth, but some of his prints selected from a large and representative collection possessed by the Museum are usually on show.Joshua Reynolds is represented by four canvases all painted in the 1780-s.

An interesting example of his late work is the «Infant Hercules strangling the Serpents», which is an allegory of the youthful Russia vanquishing her enemies. The picture was commissioned from Reynolds by Catherine II, and was brought to Russia in 1789. In 1891 two other canvases were sent by Reynolds to Russia. One was the «Continence of Scepic Africanus» , which , as well as the «Infant Hercules», reveals Reynolds's conception of the grand style in art. The other was «Venus and Cupid»; presumably representing Lady Hamilton .This is one of the versions of the piсture entitled «The Snake in the Grass», owned by the National Gallery, London Reynolds's «Girl at a window» is a copy with slight modifications, from Rembrandt's canvas bearing the same title, and owned by the Dulwich Gallery. It may be regarded as an example of Reynolds's study of the «old masters'» works.A fair idea of the British artists' achievements in the field of portrait painting can be gained from the canvases by George Romney Thomas Gainsborough, John Opie, Henry Rdeburn, John Hoppner and John Russell, all marked by a vividness of expression and brilliance of execution typical of the British School of portrait painting in the days when it had achieved a national tradition. Highly important is Gainsborough's superb «Portrait of the Duchess of Beaufort» painted in a loose and most effective manner characteristic of his art in the late 1770's. For charm of expression and brilliance of execution, it ranks among the masterpieces of the Museum.The «Tron Forge» by Joseph Wright of Derby is an interesting example of a new subject in English18th century art: the theme of labour and industry, which merged in the days of the Industrial Revolution.

The few paintings of importance belonging to the British school of the 19th century include a landscape ascribed to John Constable; the «Boats at a shore» by Richard Parkers Bonington; the «Portrait of an old woman» by David Wilki, three portraits by Thomas Lawrence and portraits by George Daive, of which the unfinished «Portrait of the Admiral Shishkov» is the most impressive.

The collection was largely formed at the beginning of the 20th century, a great part of it deriving from the Khitrovo collection bequeathed to the Museum in 1916.

The Tretyakov Gallery

The Tretyakov Gallery, founded by Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov (1832-1989), a Moscow merchant and art patron, is a national treasury of Russian pre-revolutionary and Russian art.

The Gallery's centenary was widely celebrated throughout Russia in May 1956. Tretyakov spent his life collecting the works of Russian painters which reflected the spirit and ideas of all progressive intellectual of his day. He began his collection in 1856 with the purchase of «Temptation» (1856) by N.Shilder and «Finnish Smugglers» (1853) by V.Khudyakov. These paintings are on permanent exhibition. In order that his collection better reflect the centuries-old traditions of Russian art he acquired works of various epochs and also began a collection of antique icons. Tretyakov was one of the few people of his time who realised the great intrinsic value of ancient Russian art. He was on friendly terms with many progressive, democratic Russian painters, frequenting their studious, taking an active interest in their work, often suggesting themes for new paintings, and helping them financially. His collection grew rapidly; by 1872 a special building was erected to house it.

Tretyakov was aware of the national importance of his vast collection of Russian art and presented it to the city of Moscow in 1892, thus establishing the first museum in Russia. An excerpt from his will reads: « Desirous of facilitating the establishment in my beloved city of useful institutions aimed at promoting the development of art in Russia, and in order to hand down to succeeding generations the collection I have amassed I hereby bequeath my entire picture gallery and the works of art contained therein, as well as my half of the house, to the Moscow City Duma. By special decree of the Soviet Government, Issued on June 3 1918 and signed by V.I. Lenin, the Gallery was designated one of the most important educational establishments of the country. It was also decreed that the name of its founder be retained in honour of Tretyakov's great services to Russian culture.

The Gallerie's collection has grown considerably in the years since the Revolution. In 1893 it consisted of 1805 works of art, but by 1956 the number had increased to 35276.The early Russian Art department and the collections of sculpture and drawings were considerably enlarged, and an entirely new department- Soviet Art- was created. By a Government decision of 1956, a new house is to be built for the Gallery within the next few years.

At present, the more interesting and distinctive works, tracing the development of Russian art through nearly ten centuries, are exhibit in the Gallery's 54 halls.

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham palace is the official London residence of Her Majesty the Queen and as such is one of the best known and most potent symbols of the British monarchy. Yet it has been a royal residence for only just over two hundred and thirty years and a palace for much less; and its name, known the world over, is owed not to a monarch but to an English Duke.Buckingham House was built for John, first Duke of Buckingham, between 1702 and 1705. It was sold to the Crown in 1762. Surprisingly, since it was a large house in a commanding position, it was never intended to be the principal residence of the monarch.

Although King George III modernised and enlarged the house considerably in the 1760s and 17770s, the transformations that give the building its present palatial character were carried out for King George IY by Nash in the 1820s, by Edward Blore for King William IY and Queen Victoria in the 1830s and 40s and by James Pennethoooorne in the 1850s.

In the reign of King Edward YII, much of the present white and gold decoration was substituted for the richly coloured 19th century schemes of Nash and Blore; and in the 1920s, Queen Mary used the firm of White Allom to redecorate a number of rooms.

The rooms open to visitors are used principally for official entertainment.These include Receptions and State Banquets, and it is on such occasions, when the rooms are filled with flowers and thronged with formally dressed guests and liveried servants, that the Palace is seen at its most splendid and imposing. But of course the Palace is also far more than just the London home of the Royal Family and a place of lavish entertainment. It has become the administrative centre of the monarchy where, among a multitude of engagements, Her Majesty receives foreign Heads of State, Commonwealth leaders and representatives of the Diplomatic Corps and conducts Investitures, and where the majority of the Royal Houshold, consisting of six main Departments and a staff of about three hundred people, has their offices.

The Queen's House

The Duke of Buckingham's house, which George III purchased in 1762, was designed by the architect William Winde, possibly with the advice of John Talman, in 1702.

The new house, a handsome brick and stone mansion crowned with statuary and joined by colonnades to outlying wings, looked eastward down the Mall and westwards over the splendid canal and formal gardens, laid out for the Duke by Henry Wise partly on the site of the royal Mulberry Garden. This garden had been part of an ill-fated attempt by James I to introduce a silk industry to rival that of France by planting thousands of mulberry trees.

The building and its setting were well suited to the dignity of the Duke, a former Lord Chamberlain and suitor of Princess Anne, and of his wife, an illegitimate daughter of James II, whose eccentricity and delusions of grandeur earned her the nickname of «Princess Buckingham».

The principal rooms, then as now, were on the first floor. They were reached by a magnificent staircase with ironwork by Jean Tijou and walls painted by Louis Laguerre with the story of Dido and Aeneas.

Under the architectural direction of Sir William Chambers and over the following twelve years The Queen's House was gradually modernised and enlarged to provide accommodation for the King and Queen and their children, as well as their growing collection of books, pictures and works of art.

Queen Victoria's Palace

At the age of eighteen, Queen Victoria became the first Sovereign to live at Buckingham Palace.

John Nash had rightly predicted that the Palace would prove too small, but this was a fault capable of remedy. The absence of a chapel was made good after the Queen's marriage to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, when the south conservatory was converted in 1843.

In 1847 the architect Edward Blore added the new East Front. Along the first floor Blore placed the Principal Corridor, a gallery 240 feet long overlooking the Quadrangle and divided into three sections by folding doors of mirror glass. It links the Royal Corridor on the south, and opens into suites of semi-state rooms facing the Mall and St James's Park. Blore introduced into the East Front some of the finest fittings from George IY's Royal Pavilion at Brighton, which Queen Victoria ceased to use after the purchase of Osborn House in 1845.The new building rendered the Marble Arch both functionally and ornamentally dispensable, and it was removed in 1850 to its present site at the north-east corner of Hyde Park.

The State Rooms

Most of the principal State Rooms are located on to first floor of Bughingham Palace. They are approached from Nash's Grand Hall which in its unusual low proportions echoes the original hall of Bughingham House. The coupled columns which surround the Hall are each composed of a single block of veined Carrara marble enriched with Corinthian capitals of gilt bronze made by Samuel Parker.

The Grand Staircase, built by Nash on site of the original stairs, divides theatrically into three flights at the first landing, two flights curving upwards to the Guard room. The gilded balustrade was made by Samuel Parker in 1828-30. The walls are set with full-length portraits which include George III and Queen Charlotte by Beechey, William IY by Lawrence and Queen Adelaide by Archer Shee. The sculptured wall panels were designed by Thomas Stothard and the etched glass dome was made by Wainwright and Brothers.

Gallery

The picture Gallery, the largest room in the Palace, was formed by Nash in the area of Queen Charlotte's old apartments. Nash's ceiling, modified by Blore in the 1830s, was altered by Sir Aston Webb in 1914.

As there are many loans to exhibitions, the arrangement is subject to periodic change. However the Gallery normally contains works by Van Dyck, Rubens, Cuyp and Rembrandt among others. The chimneypieces are carved with heads of artists and the marble group at the end, by Chantrey, represents Mrs Jordan, mistress of William.

From the Suilk Tapestry Room the route leads via the East Gallery, Cross and West Galleries to the State Dining Room. This room is used on formal occasions and is hung with portraits of GeorgeIY, his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.

THE PALACE AT WORK

BUCKINNGHAM Palace is certainly one of the most famous buildings in the world, known to millions as Queen's home. Yet it is very much a working building and centre of the large office complex that is required for the administration of the modern monarchy.

Although foreign ambassadors are officially accredited to the Court of St James's and some ceremonies, such as the Proclamation of a new Sovereign, still take place at St James's Palace, all official business now effectively takes place at Buckingham Palace.

In some ways the Palace resembles a small town. For the 300 people who work there, there is a Post office and a police station, staff canteens and dinning rooms. There is a special three-man security team equipped with a fluoroscope, which examines every piece of mail that arrives at the Palace.There is also a soldier who is responsible for making sure the Royal Standard is flying whenever The Queen is in residence, and to make sure it is taken down when she leaves. It is his job to watch for the moment when the Royal limousine turns into the Palace gates - at the very second The Queen enters her Palace, the Royal Standard is hoisted.

Buckingham Palace is not only the name of the Royal Family but also the workplace of an army of secretaries, clerks and typists, telephonists, carpenters and plumbers etc.The business of monarchy never stops and the light is often shining from the window of the Queen's study late at night as she works on the famous «boxes», the red and blue leather cases in which are delivered the State papers, official letters and reports which follow her whenever she is in the world.There can hardly be a single one of 600 or so rooms in the Palace that is not in more or less constant use.

The senior member of the Royal Household is the Lord Chamberlain. In addition to the role of overseeing all the departments of the Household, he has a wide variety of responsibilities, including all ceremonial duties relating to the Sovereign, apart from the wedding, coronation and funeral of the monarch. .These remain the responsibility of the Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk. The Lord Chamberlain's Office has the greatest variety of responsibilities. It looks after all incoming visits by overseas Heads of State and the administration of the Chapels Royal. It also supervises the appointment of Pages of Honour, the Sergeants of Arms, the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, the Master of the Queen's Music, and the Keeper of the Queen's Swans.

The director of the Royal Collection is responsible for one of the finest collections of works of art in the world. The Royal Collection is a vast assemblage of works of art of all kinds, comprising some 10,000 pictures, enamels and miniatures, 20,000 drawings, 10,000 watercolours and 500,000 prints, and many thousands of pieces of furniture, sculpture, glass, porcelain, arms and armour, textiles, silver, gold and jewellery.It has largely been formed by succeeding sovereigns, consorts and other members of the Royal Family in the three hundred years since the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660.

The Collection is presently housed in twelve principal locations open to the public, which include Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court Palace, Windsor Castle, The Palace of Holyroodhouse and Osborne House.

In addition a substantial number of objects are on indefinite loan to the British Museum, National Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum and Museum of London.

Additional access to the Royal Collection is provided by means of exhibitions, notably at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, opened in 1962.

Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle is the oldest royal residence to have remained in continuous use by the monarchs of Britain and is in many ways an architectural epitome of the history of the nation. Its skyline of battlements, turrets and the great Round Tower is instantly recognised throughout the world. The Castle covers an area of nearly thirteen acres and contains, as well as a royal palace, a magnificent collegiate church and the homes or workplaces of a large number of people, including the Constable and Governor of the Castle, the Military Knights of Windsor and their families, etc.

The Castle was founded by William the Conqueror c. 1080 and was conceived as one of a chain of fortifications built as a defensive ring round London.

Norman castles were built to a standard plan with an artificial earthen mound supporting a tower or keep, the entrance to which was protected by an outer fenced courtyard or baily. Windsor is the most notable example of a particularly distinctive version of this basic plan developed for use on a ridge site. It comprises a central mote with a large bialy to either side of it rather than just on one side as was more than usual.

As first built, the Castle was entirely defensive, constructed of earth and timber, but easy access from London and the proximity of the Castle to the old royal hunting forest to the south soon recommended it as a royal residence. Henry I is known to have had domestic quarterswithin the castle as early as 1110 and Henry converted the Castle into a palace. He built two separate sets of royal apartments within the fortified enclosure: a public or official state residence in the Lower Ward, with a hall where he could entertain his court and the barons on great occasions, and a smaller private residence on the North side of the Upper Ward for the exclusive occupation of himself and his family.

Henry II was a great builder at all his residences. He began to replace the old timber outer walls of the Upper Ward with a hard heath stone found ten miles south of Windsor. The basic curtain wall round the Upper Ward, much modified by later alterations and improvements, dates from Henry II's time, as does the old part of the stone keep, known as the Round Tower, on top of William's the Conqueror's mote. The reconstruction of the curtain wall round the Lower Ward was completed over the next sixty years. The well-preserved section visible from the High street with its three half-round towers was built by Henry III in the 1220s.He took a keen personal interest in all his projects and carried out extensive works at Windsor. In his time it became one of the three principal royal palaces alongside those at Westminster and Winchester. He rebuilt Henry II's apartments in the Lower Ward and added there a large new chapel, all forming a coherently planned layout round a courtyard with a cloister; parts survive embedded in later structures in the Lower Ward. He also further improved the royal private apartments in the Upper Ward.

The outstanding medieval expansion of Windsor, however, took place in the reign of Edward III. His huge building project at the Castle was probably the most ambitious single architectural scheme in the whole history of the English royal residences, and cost the astonishing total of 50,772 pounds. Rebuilt with the proceeds of the King's military triumphs, the Castle was converted by Edward III into a fortified palace redolent of chivalry The stone base was and military glory, as the centre of his court and the seat of his newly founded Order of the Garter. Even today, the massive Gothic architecture of Windsor reflects Edward III's medieval ideal of Christian, chivalric monarchy as clearly as Louis XIY's Versailles represents baroque absolutism.

The Lower Ward was reconstructed, the old royal lodgings being transformed into the College of St George, and a new cloister, which still survives, built with traceeried windows. In addition there were to be twenty-six Poor Knights. Henry III's chapel was made over for their use, rebuilt and renamed St George's Chapel.

The reconstruction of the Upper Ward was begun in 1357 with new royal lodgings built of stone under the direction of William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester. An inner gatehouse with cylindrical towers was built at the entrance to the Upper Ward.Stone-vaulted undercrofts supported extensive royal apartments on the first floor with separate sets of rooms for the King and the Queen (as was the tradition of the English royal palaces), arranged round two inner courtyards later known as Brick Court and Horn Court .Along the south side, facing the quadrangle, were the Great Hall and Royal Chapel end to end. Edward IY built the present larger St George's Chapel to the west of Henry III's.Henry YII remodelled the old chapel (now the Albert Memorial Chapel) at its east end; he also added a new range to the west of the State Apartments which Elizabeth I extended by a long gallery.

During the English Civil War in the mid-seventeenth century, the Castle was seized by Parliamentary forces who ill-treated the buildings and used part of them as a prison for Royalists.At the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 Charles II was determined to reinstate the old glories of the Crown after the interval of the Commonwealth. Windsor was his favourite non-metropolitan palace and it was the only one which could be effectively garrisoned.

The architect Hugh May was appointed in 1673 to supervise the work and over the next eleven years the Upper Ward and State Apartments were reconstructed. The result was both ingenious and magnificent, making the Upper Ward the most unusual palace in baroque Europe.

The interior was a rich contrast to the austerity of the exterior and formed the first and grandest sequence of baroque State Apartments in England.The ceilings were painted by Antonio Verrio, an Italian artist brought from Paris by the Duke of Montagu, Charles II's ambassador to Louis XIY. The walls were wainscoted in oak and festooned with brilliant virtuoso carvings by Grinling Gibbons and Henry Phillips of fruit, flowers, fish and birds The climax of Charles II's reconstruction was St George's Hall and the King's Chapel with murals by Verrio. In the former there were historical scenes of Edward III and the Black Prince, as well as Charles II in Grater robes enthroned in glory, and in the latter Christ's miracles and the Last Supper. All were destroyed by Wyatville inn 1829. The source of inspiration for the new rooms at Windsor was the France of Louis XIY, but the use of wood rather than coloured marbles gave Windsor a different character and established a fashion which was copied in many English country houses.William III and the early Hanoverian kings spent more time at Hampton Court than at Windsor. Windsor, however, came back into its own in the reign of George III, who disliked Hampton Court, which had unhappy memories for him From 1777 George III reconstructed the Queen's Lodge to the south of the Castle. He also restored St George's Chapel in the 1780s.At the same time a new state entrance and Gothic staircase were constructed for the State Apartments.

As well as his work in the Castle, George III modernised Frogmore in the Home Park as a retreat for his wife, Queen Charlotte, and reclaimed some of the Great Park for agriculture. The King designed a special Windsor uniform of blue cloth with red and gold facings, a version of which is still worn on occasions today. The King loved the Castle and its romantic associations. In 1805 he revived the formal ceremonies of installation of Knights of the Garter at Windsor.When George IY inherited the throne, he shared his father's romantic architectural enthusiasm for Windsor and determined to continue the Gothic transformation and the creation of convenient, comfortable and splendid new royal apartments.In many ways Windsor Castle enjoyed its apogee in the reign of Queen Victoria.. She spent the largest portion of every year at Windsor, and in her reign it enjoyed the position of principal palace of the British monarchy and the focus of the British Empire as well as nearly the whole of royal Europe. The Castle was visited by heads of state from all over the world and was the scene of a series of splendid state visits. On these occasions the state rooms were used for their original purpose by royal guests. The visits of King Louis Philippe in 1844 and the Emperor Napoleon III inn 1855 were especially successful. They were invested at Windsor with the Order of the Garter in formal ceremonies, as on other occasions were King Victor Emanuel I of Italy and the Emperor William I of Germany. For the most of the twentieth century Windsor Castle survived as it was in the nineteenth century. The Queen and her family spend most of their private weekends at the Castle.A distinctive feature of hospitality at Windsor Castle are the invitations to «dine and sleep» which go back to Queen Victoria's time and encompass people prominent in many walks of life including The Queen's ministers. On such occasions, The Queen shows her guests a specially chosen exhibition of treasures from the Royal Collection.

The Gallery, the China museum

The central vaulted undercroft originally created by James Wyatt and extended in the same style by Jeffry Wyatville to serve as the principal entrance hall to the State Apartments, was cut off when the Grand Staircase was reoriented in the reign of Queen Victoria. It has recently been redesigned and now houses a changing exhibition of works of art from the Royal Collection, which include Old Master drawings from the world-famous Print Room in the Royal Library.

The carved Ionic capitals of the columns survive from Hugh May's alterations for Charles II. In cases round the walls are displayed magnificent china services from leading English and European porcelain manufacturers: Serves, Meiden, Copenhagen, Naples, Rockingham and Worchester. These are still used for royal banquets and other important occasions.There are some famous paintings in Windsor Castle: Van Dyke's «Triple Portrait of Charles I» painted to send to Bernie in Italy to enable him to sculpture a bust of the King; Colonel John St.Leger, a friend of the Prince Regent, by Gainsborough;Vermeer's portrait of a lady at the virginals; The five eldest children of Charles I by Van Dyke; John Singleton Copley, the American artist, painted the three youngest daughters of George III and Queen Charlotte:Princesses Mary, Sophia and Amelia, none of whom left legitimate descendants and The Campo SS. Giovanniie Paolo Canaletto etc.

St George's Chapel

St George's Chapel is the spiritual home of the Prodder of the Garter, Britain's senior Order of Chivalry, founded by King Edward III in 1348. St George is the patron saint of the Order.The architecture of the Chapel ranks among the finest examples of Perpendicular Gothic, the late medieval style of English architecture. Unlike most of the other great churches, St George's Chapel has its principal or «show» front on the south, facing the Henry YIII gate and running almost the length of the Lower Ward.

As Sovereign of the Order of the Garter, The Queen attends a service in the Chapel in June each year, together with the Knights and Ladies of the Order. Today thirteen Military Knights of Windsor represent the Knights of the Garter in ST George's Chapel at regular services. Ten sovereigns are buried in the Chapel, as are buried in the Chapel, as are other members of the royal family, many represented by magnificent tombs.The Albert Memorial Chape/l The richly decorated interior is a Victorian masterpiece, created by Sir George Gilbert Scott for Queen Victoria in 1863-73 to commemorate her husband Albert.

The vaulted ceiling is decorated in gold mosaic by Antonio Salviati. The figures in the false west window represent sovereigns, clerics and others associated with St George's Chapel. The inlaid marble panels around the lower walls depict scenes from Scripture.

This was the site of one of the Castle's earliest chapels, built in 1240 by King Henry III and adapted by King Edward III in the 1350s as the first chapel of the College of St George and the Order of the Garter. When the existing St George's Chapel was built in 11475-15528, this small chapel fell into disuse. Subsequent plans to turn it into a royal mausoleum came to nothing.

In 1863 Queen Victoria ordered its complete restoration and redecoration as a temporary resting place for Prince Albert.The Chapel is now dominated by Alfred Gilbert's tomb of the Duke of Clarence and Avandale who died in 1892.

The Great ParkThe Great Park of Windsor, covering about 4,800 acres, has evolved out of the Saxon and medieval hunting forest. It is connected to the Castle by an avenue of nearly 3 miles, known as the Long Walk, planted by King Charles II in 1685 and replanted in 1945. The Valley Gardens are open all year round.

Westminster abbey

Westminster Abbey is one of the most famous, historic and widely visited churches not only in Britain but in the whole Christian world. There are other reasons for its fame apart from its beauty and its vital role as a centre of the Christian faith in one of the world's most important capital cities. These include the facts that since 1066 every sovereign apart from Edward Y and Edward YIII has been crowned here and that for many centuries it was also the burial place of kings, queens and princes.

The royal connections began even earlier than the present Abbey, for it was Edward the Confessor, sometimes called the last of the English kings(1042-66) and canonised in 1163, who established an earlier church on this site. His great Norman Abbey was built close to his palace on Thorney Island. It was completed in 1065 and stood surrounded by the many ancillary buildings needed by the community of Benedictine monks who passed their lives of prayer here. Edward's death near the time of his Abbey's consecration made it natural for his burial place to be by the High Altar.

Only 200 years later, the Norman east end of the Abbey was demolished and rebuilt on the orders of Henry III, who had a great devotion to Edward the Confessor and wanted to honour him. The central focus of the new Abbey was a magnificent shrine to house St Edward's body ; the remains of this shrine, dismantled at the Reformation but later reerected in rather a clumsy and piecemeal way, can still be seen behind the High Altar today.

The new Abbey remained incomplete until 1376, when the rebuilding of the Nave began; it was not finished until 150 years later, but the master masons carried on a similar thirteenth-century Gothic, French-influenced design, as that of Henry III's initial work, over that period, giving the whole a beautiful harmony of style.

In the early sixteenth century the Lady Chapel was rebuilt as the magnificent Henry YII Chapel; with its superb fan-vaulting it is one of Westminster's great treasures.In the mid-eighteenth century the last malor additions - the two western towers designed by Hawksmoor - were made to the main fabric of the Abbey.

THE NAVE was begun by Abbot Litlington who financed the work with money left by Cardinal Simon Langham, his predecessor, for the use of the monastery. The master mason in charge of the work was almost certainly the great Henry Yevele. His design depended on the extra strength given to the structure by massive flying buttresses. These enabled the roof to be raised to a height of 102 feet. The stonework of the vaulting has been cleaned and the bosses gilded in recent years.

At the west end of the Nave is a magnificent window filled with stained glass of 1735, probably designed by Sir James Thornhill (1676-1734). (He also painted the interior of the dome in St Paul's Cathedral} The design shows Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with fourteen prophets, and underneath are the arms of King Sebert, Elizabeth I, George II, Dean Wilcocks and the Collegiate Church of St Peter in Westminster.

Also at the west end of the Nave is the grave of the Unknown Warrior. The idea for such a memorial is said to have come from a British chaplain who noticed, in a back garden at Armeentieeres, a grave with the simple inscription: «An unknown British soldier». In 1920 the body of another unknown soldier was brought back from the battlefields to be reburied in the Abbey on 11 November. George Y and Queen Mary and many other members of the royal family attended the service, 100 holders of the Victoria Cross lining the Nave as a Guard of Honour. On a nearby pillar hangs the Congressional Medal, the highest award which can be conferred by the United St ates.

From the Nave roof hang chandeliers, both giving light and in daylight reflecting it from their hundreds of pedant crystals. They were a gift to mark the 900th anniversary of the Abbey and are of Waterford glass.

At the east end of the Nave is the screen separating it from the Choir. Designed by the then Surveyor, Edward Blore, in 1834, it is the fourth screen to be placed here; the wrought-iron gates, however, remain from a previous screen. Within recent years the screen has been painted and glided.

THE CHOIR was originally the part of the Abbey in which the monks worshipped, but there is now no trace of the pre- Reformation fittings, for in the late eighteenth century Kneene, the then Surveyor, removed the thirteenth-century stalls and designed a smaller Choir. This was in turn destroyed in the mid-nineteenth century by Edward Blore, who created the present Choir in Victoria Gothic style and removed the partitions which until then had blocked off the transeptsIt is here that the choir of about twenty-two boys and twelve Lay Vicars sings the daily services. The boys are educated at the Choir School attached to the Abbey ;mention of such a school is made in the fifteenth century and it may be even older in origin. For some centuries it was linked with Westminster School, but became independent in the mid-nineteenth century.

The Organ was originally built by Shrider in 1730. Successive rebuildings in 1849,1884,1909,,and 1937 and extensive work in 1983 have resulted in the present instrument.

THE SANCTUARY is the heart of the Abbey, where the High Altar stands The altar and the reredos behind it, with a mosaic of the Last Supper, were designed by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1867. Standing on the altar are two candlesticks, bought with money bequeathed by a serving-maid, Sarah Hughes, in the seventeenth century. In front of the altar, but protected by carpeting, is another of the Abbey's treasures - a now-very-worn pavement dating from the thirteenth century. The method of its decoration is known as Cosmati work, after the Italian family who developed the technique of inlaying intricate designs made up of small pieces of coloured marble into a plain marble ground.

THE NORTH TRANSEPT, to the left of the Sanctuary, has a beautiful rose window designed by Sir James Thornhill, showing eleven Apostles. The Transept once led to Solomon's Porch and now leads to the nineteenth-century North Front.

THE HENRY YII CHAPEL, beyond the apse, was begun in 1503 as a burial place for Henry YI, on the orders of Henry YII, but it was Henry.YII himself who was finally buried here, in an elaborate tomb. The master mason, who designed the chapel was probably Robert Vertue his brother William constructed the vault at St George's Chapel, Windsor, in 1505 and this experience may have helped in the creation of the magnificent vaulting erected here a few years later.The chapel has an apse and side aisles which are fan-vaulted, and the central section is roofed with extraordinarily intricate and finely-detailed circular vaulting ,embellished with more Tudor badges and with carved pendants, which is literally breath-taking in the perfection of its beauty and artistry.Beneath the windows, once filled with glass painted by Bernard Flower of which only fragments now remain, are ninety-four of the original 107 statues of saints, placed in richly embellished niches. Beneath these, in turn, hang the banners of the living Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, whose chapel this is. When the Order was founded in 1725, extra stalls and seats were added to those originally provided. To the stalls are attached plates recording the names and arms of past Knights of the Order, while under the seats can be seen finely carved misericords.

The altar, a copy of the sixteenth-century altar incorporates two of the original pillars and under its canopy hangs a fifteenth-century Madonna and Child by Vivarini.

In the centre of the apse, behind the altar, stand the tomb of Henry YII and Elizabeth of York, protected by a bronze screen. The tomb was the work of Torrigiani and the effigies of the king and queen are finely executed in gilt bronze.

In later years many more royal burials took place in the chapel. Mary I, her half-sister Elizabeth I and half-brother Edward YI all lie here The Latin inscription on thetomb - on which only Elizabeth Ist effigy rests - reads: «Consorts both in throne and grave, here rest we two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one Resurrection».

In the south asle lies Mary Queen of Scots, mother of James Yi and I, who brought her body from Peterborough and gave her a tomb even more magnificent than that which he had erected for his cousin Elizabeth.I.