The influence of Andrea Palladio on architecture in the British Isles cannot be exaggerated.
When a building is Palladian it is easy to think it was designed by Palladio. That’s a big mistake. Palladio died in 1580, when Inigo Jones was just seven years old. Obviously they never met, Palladio never came to Britain and didn’t design anything here. Inigo Jones did go to Italy, saw his buildings, met Vincenzo Scamozzi (who inherited Palladio’s unfinished projects) and acquired Palladio’s Quattro libri dell’architettura. It was Inigo Jones who made Palladian architecture so ubiquitous ever after. The Inigo Jones of today is Quinlan Terry Architects. People sneer at QT’s neo-classical style as if it is some sort of fake. Every Palladian building here is Mock Palladian and QT is only following in Inigo Jones’s footsteps. Critics simply display ignorance.
Gosh, I wish I had been writing this blog when I went to Vicenza. There are twenty-three of Palladio’s buildings and a further twenty-four villas in the Veneto. But I did go to Regents Park where QT designed six villas. By the way Roger Scruton shares my opinion: “Hail Quinlan Terry: our greatest living architect.” Inigo Jones prospered under Charles I’s patronage. Likewise QT is Charles III’s favourite architect.
But I digress. Beaufort House was built for Thomas Moore. I don’t know the architect but the north gate, onto the King’s Road, was designed by Inigo Jones in 1621. When the house was demolished in 1740 by Hans Sloane, Lord Burlington rescued it and had it installed at Chiswick House.
It is usually photographed from the other, more elaborately decorated, side but I want to draw your attention to the holly hedges – they frames the gate and the dark green contrasts beautifully with the pale stone. One of many eye-catchers at Chiswick; another is the ha-ha separating the lawn from the Italian garden.
There is an abundant display of lilac wisteria and the heavily pollarded limes are sprouting leaves. There’s always so much to see.
Ferne House,on the book cover can be seen across the valley from our house.The matching wings were added later
Inigo Jones Forever ! As I learned when doing the architecture paper in ‘A’ level Art several hundreds of years ago. A glorious man, everything from pediments to costumes for the court masques, (it is, supposedly, Shakespeare’s birthday today after all).