The Seven Noses of Soho by Jamie Manners

Author:Jamie Manners [Manners, Jamie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books

BARBICAN

HOLY SEPULCHRE MODELS

Museum of the Order of St John, St John’s Gate, St John Street, EC1M 4DA

The medieval orders of knights can be tricky concepts to get our modern brains around; very powerful bodies at the time, most have either vanished or morphed into something quite different. Everyone knows the St John Ambulance and its familiar Maltese cross, but it is an eye-opener to realize how far back the organization goes. It began as Knights Hospitallers in Crusader Jerusalem, offering shelter and healthcare to poor pilgrims. When Jerusalem fell the knights moved to Acre and then Rhodes, which also fell, so Charles V allowed them to have the isle of Malta for a peppercorn rent. The knights built many of its towns, including the capital city of Valletta, and remained until ousted by Napoleon. The London headquarters of the order are based around a suitably antique city gate in Clerkenwell that dates from 1504, although much of its stone cladding was replaced by the Victorians. Inside, a free museum uses original artefacts to illustrate the order’s history: centuries-old guidebooks for pilgrims, armour and weaponry, and ceramics from Malta and the Islamic world. Particularly good are two models of Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, showing its domes and tower. They have been painstakingly assembled; one is in dark wood, the other studded with mother of pearl, and pieces of ivory on both form slender Romanesque arches. The various sections of the church look like exquisite jewellery boxes. In the seventeenth century, these would have made very upmarket souvenirs for the richest pilgrims.

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