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The Tradition of the Soffitto Veneziano in Lord Burlington’s Suburban Villa at Chiswick
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Extract
Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington (1694–1753) was an architect with a mission. His architecture is didactic and lucid in character, and he employed it to demonstrate how Britain could create an architecture worthy of classical Rome. Burlington based his architecture on what he considered the epitome of the classical tradition: that of Inigo Jones, Andrea Palladio and Roman architecture filtered through Palladio’s drawings of the antique and through discussions and representations of the antique in I Quattro Libri Dell’Architettura. From the smallest architectural detail to the largest forms and structures of rooms and buildings, Burlington’s custom was to rely upon a model or a series of models. Because he rarely obscured or totally transformed his model, it is normally possible to follow his design process. Nowhere is the didactic, expository nature of Burlington’s architectural ideas more clearly stated than in the beamed ceilings of the piano nobile of his suburban villa at Chiswick.
- Type
- Section 5: Britain and the Continent
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- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2001
References
Notes
1 ‘There is no greater delight than learning’: quotation from Pollio, Marcus Vitruvius, I dieci libri dell’architettura di M. Vitruvio tradutti et commentari da Monsignor Barbaro eletto d’Aquileggia (Venice, 1567), p. 32 Google Scholar. I am indebted to Gordon Higgott for bringing this quotation to my attention.
2 Schulz, Juergen, Venetian Painted Ceilings of the Renaissance (Berkeley, California, 1968), pp. 3-5, 52–54 Google Scholar.
3 Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth: Boy Collection [2].
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7 Harris, John, Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the R.I.B.A.: Inigo Jones and John Webb (Farnborough, 1972), no. 39, p. 15 Google Scholar; Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth: Boy [8], 20, [16] 1-2.
8 Wilson, William Kent, p. 91.
9 During the 1990 restoration of the Blue Velvet Room the column drum was inexplicably transformed into a cannon barrel.
10 Wilson, op. cit., pp. 92-95. For the attribution to Kent of the Burlington House paintings see Wittkower, Rudolf, Palladio and English Palladianism (London, 1974), p. 117 Google Scholar.
11 Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth: ‘Public Ornaments, Arches, Bridges’, Album 35, fol. 6.
12 For the attribution of this drawing to Alberti see Wilson, op. cit., p. 95; Sicca, Cinzia Maria, ‘On William Kent’s Roman Sources’, A rchitectural History, 29 (1986), p. 139 Google Scholar; Jaffé, Michael, The Devonshire Collection of Italian Drawings, 4 vols (London, 1994), 11, no. 152, p. 38 Google Scholar.
13 I am grateful to the late Philip Pouncey for initially identifying the Lombard characteristics of the drawing, to Professor Giulio Bora for his attribution, and to Robert Miller for placing it within its artistic context.
14 [Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington], All’Intendente Lettore [Introduction], Palladio, Andrea, Fabbriche’ Antiche Disegnate’ Da Andrea Palladio Vicentino (London, 1730)Google Scholar.
15 Joseph Addison, The Spectator, no. 415, 26 June 1712: see Donald F. Bond (ed.), 5 vols (Oxford, 1965), III, P. 555.
16 For a different interpretation of the Blue Velvet Room ceiling see Clark, Jane, ‘Lord Burlington is Here’, in Barnard, Toby & Clark, Jane (eds), Lord Burlington: Architecture, Art and Life (London, 1995), pp. 293-94Google Scholar.
17 Vertue, , ‘Notebooks’, Walpole Society, III (Oxford, 1936), p. 73 Google Scholar.