,
13 tweets,
5 min read
Read on Twitter
Yesterday I visited the earliest Catholic church in Agra & and one of the oldest in northern India. Built by the Jesuits around 1599, it was constructed on land granted by the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605), nearby an Armenian Christian settlement. (1/12) 
The 1772 inscription that appears in this image reveals that the church was refurbished at a later date. In fact, the church was first rebuilt in 1636 (with imperial permission), after the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58) called for its destruction a year earlier (2/12)
The 18C campaign repaired damage to the church caused by Durrani looters. Walter Reinhardt Sombre, a European mercenary, had a hand in this campaign. You may know of his wife, Begam Samru, an Indian convert to Catholicism, whom he married at the age of 42. She was then 14. (3/12)
Further additions were made to the church (the portico, e.g.) in the 19C. But what I want to point out here is that the building still bears obvious traces of its early 17C roots, such as the red sandstone (now painted) portal, eaves, and brackets on the northern side. (4/12)
This detail shows the multi-lobed niches and vegetal designs that are so characteristic of Shah Jahani architecture as seen in the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort (second pic shows detail from audience hall built 1635) just south of the church. (5/12)
And here, circled in red, is a stray fragment of c. 1636 crenellation (or deck railing?) that’s been attached to the base of the dome’s drum on the church’s eastern end. (6/12)
The interior also incorporates these 17C “architectural relics,” as Gauvin Bailey has called them. Note, e.g., the painted carved stone screens (jalis) located in the apse and at the eastern end of the barrel-vaulted nave… (7/12)
…which recall similar carved screens at the Taj, the Fort, and in Agra’s congregational mosque (see pic), constructed by Mughal princess Jahanara Begum in 1648. (This detail, btw, shows milk & henna handprints, which women apply to improve their chances of conceiving.) (8/12)
These details from the church’s interior show now-painted & gilded c. 1636 sandstone panels bearing floral designs, which, again, resemble designs from other Shah Jahani projects (3rd pic is detail from the Taj mosque’s dado). (9/12)
The reuse of 17C architecture in these rebuilding campaigns is not my discovery (Bailey has documented this elsewhere). What I do want to emphasize here is 1) how Mughal imperial forms carried meaning(s) well into the 18 & 19C—at a Jesuit complex, no less… (10/12)
…the erection of these fragmentary Shah Jahan-period baluster columns outside the cemetery abutting the nearby mid-19C cathedral (see 2nd pic with “our” smaller church in background) further underscores that point… (11/12)
And 2) that the capacity to “read” architecture is a critical part of doing historical work. Texts are critical to this project, too, but buildings and complexes also “speak,” filling important lacunas where texts—past and present—are silent or lie, obfuscate, and forget. (12/12)
Addendum: This thread brought to you by a manuscript specialist trained by architectural historians and archaeologists. All pix are mine!
