The Palladian Revival

In 1726 Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, built an addition to his modest country house on the river Thames at Chiswick. Influenced by the architecture of the sixteenth-century Italian Andrea Palladio and by the British architects from Inigo Jones to James Gibbs and Colen Campbell who followed in Palladio's footsteps, Lord Burlington raised a freestanding 'villa,' an English response to Palladio's famous Villa Rotonda. The villa, with sumptuous interiors designed by William Kent, was as distinguished as any designed by Palladio or Jones. The building became the touchstone of Neo-Palladian architecture; its architect became known as the 'Modern Vitruvius,' the 'Apollo of the Arts.' This illustrated book focuses on the creation of this famous 'Villa by the Thames.'