Inigo Jones

Abstract

Inigo Jones (b. 1573–d. 1652) is widely acknowledged to have been England’s most important architect. He was also the single-most important figure in the visual arts in England in the 17th century. Jones famously traveled to Italy and studied first-hand the buildings of the Italian masters, and he admired, in particular, those of Andrea Palladio. As the court designer to the Stuart kings, James I and Charles I, he is credited with introducing the classical language of architecture to the country, that is, the coherent display of the antique architectural Orders on façades following Renaissance building practices by then common throughout Europe. The first half of the 17th century saw a fundamental change in the popular style of English architecture. While previous English architect-masons had used the Orders in isolated but coherent ways, as on the gate to the Old Schools in Oxford and on that to Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge, no one had used the Orders to compose an entire façade, as Jones was to do at the Banqueting House in Whitehall from 1619. Jones also designed such seminal works as the Queen’s House at Greenwich and the Queen’s Chapel at St. James’s Palace during his long service as Surveyor of the King’s Works. His most important work, the refacing of Old St. Paul’s Cathedral, was largely destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, and it was demolished to make way for Wren’s building. Alongside his design of buildings, Jones designed the costumes and perspective settings for a series of court masques. He also laid out the first public squares in London, at Covent Garden and Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Jones was awarded the title of “Vitruvius Britannicus” soon after his death, and he came to be seen as the quintessential English Palladian in the 18th century through the work of Lord Burlington and Colen Campbell.