We know he was a thoroughly charming man who loved intelligent women - he adored his talented, medically-gifted elder sister Susan and his daughter Jane, who seems to have inherited his inquiring mind. Both died young, as did both his wives, Faith and Jane. At the end of his life, with his great friend Hooke dead also, Wren was left with only his loyal but uninspired son and assistant, also named Christopher. As an old man Wren found himself embroiled in controversy over alleged corruption on the St. Paul’s contract, from which he had personally gained nothing. At one point his meagre salary was halved.

But he had lived long enough not to die in disgrace. His funeral was magnificent, his burial was in his own cathedral under that unsurpassed inscription: “If you seek his monument, look around you”. Which would have amused Wren the scientist, who had always advised against burial in churches on the grounds of public hygiene.

Like its subtitle, this book is on a grander scale than other recent Wren biographies, and is probably as definitive as current studies allow. Those wanting a fast and friendly guide to Wren should look elsewhere, since Jardine’s offering is a big, academically slanted tome. It is amazing value for the sheer amount of historical research. It sheds much light on Wren’s extraordinary times, but somehow fails to capture the whole man. You just catch a glimpse of his coat-tails, disappearing into the coffee-house around the next corner.

We still know next to nothing about his private life - Jardine suggests he didn’t have one, really. And we do not know when or why the Oxford mathematical prodigy first turned his hand to architecture. Two years before the design of his first authenticated building, he was already an architectural consultant to the new King. How? Mere loyalty would not have been enough. He must have been able to demonstrate substantial credentials in this field, but we do not know what they were. Jardine thinks he may have designed some early research labs in Oxford, but is that all? Nobody yet knows. It remains a frustrating mystery.