Several of Christopher Wren’s tracts on architecture, included by his son Christopher in the Parentalia, are concerned with ancient buildings, but they show scant regard for either Pythagorean harmonies or the sacred principles employed by God as designer. Wren is interested in Solomon’s Temple (see also catalogue no. 57), as he was in a number of ancient structures, but for him its status as architecture is not enhanced by its divine inspiration. Since Solomon employed Phoenician workmen and was in correspondence with King Hiram, he argues, what we might discover about the Tyrian style would enrich our knowledge of the Temple, but while the Bible gives us general dimensions, we have little knowledge of the architecture that was used. What we can be sure of, however, is that the ‘fine romantick Piece, after the Corinthian Order’ elaborated by Villalpando is ‘mere Fancy’ (p.360). Pillars used in such early buildings were grosser even than the Doric order, and it is with evident preference that Wren turns to deal with the Ionic temple of Diana at Ephesus. His judgement of the buildings he considers has scarcely any devotional content and thus the hierarchy of designs he adopts is completely opposed to that of Kircher (catalogue no.37). It is in keeping with his attitude to Villalpando that Wren rejects the Vitruvian association of the orders with human proportions: columns, he thinks, are more like trees than like men.