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.