2 ITALIAN INFLUENCE 



This new demand in regard to style was partly met by 

 inviting foreign workmen to this country, and partly by sending 

 English designers to study in Italy ; but the knowledge thus 

 acquired was utilised by our native craftsmen in their own way. 

 It influenced them, but did not enslave them. At first it 

 puzzled them, with the result that much hybrid work was done 

 which would have astonished both their Gothic forefathers and 

 their Italian contemporaries, but which nevertheless has an 

 attractive piquancy of its own. 



This tentative stage lasted well into the seventeenth century, 

 until the knowledge and genius of Inigo Jones, most ably 

 seconded by John Webb, gradually wrought a revolution, and 

 English architecture freed itself from the pleasant inaccuracies 

 of its earlier exponents. 



It is at the time when the old order was beginning to give 

 way to the new that the story of the English House is taken up 

 in the following pages. It will be pursued through the next 

 two centuries. We shall see how the crude ideas of Elizabethan 

 and Jacobean architects were mellowed under the influence of 

 Inigo Jones ; how John Webb carried on his master's teaching 

 through the disturbed years of the Civil War ; how wealthy 

 men, following the lead of the Earl of Arundel, indulged their 

 growing taste for collecting antiques, pictures, and other works 

 of art. Houses will be described and pictured in which Evelyn 

 and Pepys must have watched many of the events which they 

 record in their pages. 



In due course will come the great homes of the great nobles 

 of William and Mary, of Anne and the Georges ; homes which 

 express in a vivid way the social distinctions of the times, and 

 indicate the vast interval which lay between the duke and the 

 merchant more particularly in the opinion of the duke. It 

 was at this period that domestic architecture reached the zenith 

 of its splendour, aided, as it was, not only by the patronage of 

 noblemen like Lord Burlington, but by their participation in 

 the work of design. That they were able so to participate was 

 largely owing to the publication of books on architecture, both 

 ancient and modern. The point of view from which architecture 

 was then regarded, largely determined by this literature, is of 

 great historical interest, although the march of events has been 

 adverse to its continued acceptance. 



Contemporary with these great efforts in design were in- 



