The Influence of Inigo Jones on English Architecture

Chris Law RIBA, MBA, is a chartered architect specialising in Country House design and Georgian Town House restoration in London. He is studying for a PhD in Country House Studies at the University of Buckingham, supervised by country house historian Adrian Tinniswood. Chris is researching; The influence of Inigo Jones’ copy of I QUATTRO LIBRI DELL’ ARCHITETTURA on English Architecture 1613-1736.

The central premise of this thesis is simply that were it not for one book, Inigo Jones’ personal copy of Andrea Palladio’s I Quattro Libri Dell’Architettura, Georgian Architecture in England may never have existed.

Jones used his copy of I Quattro Libri Dell’Architettura as his Architectural Bible, referring to it throughout his life, and bequeathing it to his apprentice John Webb. This is exactly what Palladio had done with his apprentice Vicenzo Scamozzi. The book contains Jones’ detailed notes of his visits to the Palladian villas of the Veneto and to the ancient temples of Rome between 1613 and 1614.

I’m tracing when Jones purchased the document, how he referenced its efficacy throughout his trips to Italy, how he used it in his working practice in London and how its provenance was used by those who followed him in the establishment of Neo Palladianism in the English country house up to 1736. This singular book represents a turning point in architectural history, as its effect spread, not only throughout Britain, but to Thomas Jefferson and the New World. Jefferson also referred to I Quattro Libri Dell’Architettura as his ‘Bible’.

I’m examining in detail the book itself at Worcester College, Oxford and the rare copies of the translation and facsimile made in 1970. I’m considering its singular influence on the architecture of the English country house and public architecture, like the Banqueting House at Whitehall, St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Residences at Greenwich. Though Jones himself was unable to build great country houses due to the political instability of the Civil War and financial conditions on the great estates, this did occur one hundred years later during the Renaissance of English Palladianism from 1700 to 1736. I’m asserting that buildings such as Chiswick Villa, Stourhead and Stowe would not have taken the form they did, if Inigo Jones had not taken his copy of I Quattro Libri Dell’Architettura with him to the Veneto and Rome in 1613 and 1614 and marked up his notes on the style and form of Palladio’s architecture.

As well as using the Inigo Jones archive at Worcester College library, other principal sources are Professor Gordon Higgott, the acknowledged Inigo Jones scholar, and Charles Hind, the RIBA Curator of Drawings at the V&A, who holds the RIBA collection of Palladio drawings. Hind has identified a missing sixty-two years, between 1674 when Jones’ library was broken up, and 1736 when his copy of I Quattro Libri Dell’Architettura was bequeathed to Worcester College. I’m researching these missing years to find out who owned the book at that time and the influence it had. Though we do not know when or how he came to buy it, we do know that the book was owned by George Clarke (Secretary at War 1690-1704) in the Palladian revival during which time he built many of the Neo-Palladian colleges at Oxford. Clarke was also a close friend of Nicholas Hawksmoor, who died in 1736, as did Clarke.

As a practicing RIBA architect, I intend to research direct drawing comparisons in the form, plan and elevation of Palladio’s villas of the Veneto, which Jones visited in 1613-14, with the Jones’s buildings and proposals, as well as the great country houses of the Neo-Palladian revival of 1700-1736, to show how this book and Jones’ notes directly influenced them.

So, the central premise of this doctoral thesis is that without Inigo Jones’ personal copy of I Quattro Libri Dell’Architettura, London and the great country houses would have looked very different, and Jones’ copy hugely impacted the birth of classicism in Great Britain.

Illustrations show the link between the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza and Inigo Jones’ first designs for Old St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.