Building Codes: The Aesthetics of Calvinism in Early Modern Europe (review)

Randall's monograph examines the work of Calvinist architects in France from the outbreak of the French Wars of Religion in 1562 to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, a period in which space was a highly emotive and contested issue between the Catholics and the Huguenots. She argues that in the face of persecution, "these Calvinist creators devised strategies to subvert from within: to inscribe, via representational reconfiguration and code their distrust of the hierarchy on the very buildings commissioned to attest to Catholic authority." Furthermore, "a Protestant aesthetics of subversion, possessing its own idiom, voice, strategies, and conceptual responses to specific historical moments of oppression, existed from the mid-sixteenth through the early seventeenth century." Randall dedicates chapters of her book to exploring this in the writings and work of leading architects of the period: Bernard Palissy, Philibert de l'Orme, and a group defined as "second generation Calvinist architects" which includes figures such as Jacques Boyceau, Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, and Salomon de Brosse. It is argued that they subverted the Catholic iconography through means such as the use of code, creating hidden spaces for dissent, trompe l'oeil, "eccentric or fantastical deviations," etc. It was an architectural style that drew upon the Scriptures and was informed by the work of Jean Calvin. In the second chapter, Calvin is seen as providing a prototype for Calvinist architects. His writings employ "para-architectural terminology," and his exploration of the relationship between the visible and invisible churches led him to consider the concept of space. Randall even argues that the Institutes, "written from Calvin's location in self-imposed exile" in Strasbourg, provide Calvin's blueprint as to how the city-space of Geneva should be reconfigured. While it is true that the 1539 edition of the Institutes expanded on the original text, the basic structure of the Institutes as a guide for those deprived of spiritual sustenance in France had already been established in the first edition of 1536, before Calvin ever arrived in Geneva.

While there is certainly no doubt about the Calvinist beliefs of du Cerceau or de Brosse, the inclusion of a substantial chapter on Philibert de l'Orme does raise questions. It is in de l'Orme's writings and work that his Calvinism is evident according to Randall, but it is encoded and camouflaged so that it is only apparent to those readers familiar with Calvinist exegesis and the vernacular scriptures. It is this code and hidden meaning that Randall attempts to reveal through deconstructing his texts and "reading Philibert's allegories allegorically." And yet Randall herself comments that "Philibert has never been identified explicitly as a Calvinist, and while some aspects of his life suggest that he remained nominally a Roman Catholic until the end of his days." Much of the evidence would seem to be circumstantial, and there are problems in equating the terms 'evangelical' with 'crypto-' or 'proto-' Calvinist. Belief in the importance of Scripture was shared by various evangelicals and was not the sole preserve of the Calvinists; it was also a concern of earlier Catholic reformers, such as Lefèvre d'Etaples and Guillaume Briçonnet.

This well-illustrated book does serve to demonstrate, particularly in the chapter on "second generation Calvinist architects," the artistic and cultural importance of the contribution made by Huguenots in France during the early seventeenth century. Their work for Catholic patrons could, as Randall argues, illustrate the "Calvinist strategies of subversion." But, it also demonstrates the religious pluralism of the age.