The New Jerusalem: Rebuilding London: The Great Fire, Christopher Wren

Adrian Gilbert, The New Jerusalem. London: Bantam, 2002.

Hard cover, dustwrapper, 290 pages, illustrations, plates.

The usual light browning of the text. Fine condition.

'Following the Great Fire of London in 1666, Christopher Wren and his friends - all Freemasons and founder members of the Royal Society - had the opportunity to carry out some rudimentary archaeological research. Below the rubble of the burnt city they found remains of Roman London. When they set about rebuilding the city it was with a vision that it should become a 'New Jerusalem' but dressed in the fashionable garb of ancient Rome. To us, living  as we do in a cynical age, the idea that intelligent men should dream of rebuilding London as a version of the biblical city seems laughably strange. However, it has to be remembered that our ancestors lived in a different world ...

This is the story of how a secret society came together to rebuild the city according to a vision which they believed to be its divine destiny.'