JONES, Inigo, English architect: b. Lon don, 15 July 1573; d. there, 21 July 1652. He was the son of a clothworker and began life as a carpenter, but showing a taste for paint ing, William, Earl of Pembroke, supplied him with the means of visiting Italy for the pur pose of studying landscape painting. At Venice the works of Palladio inspired him with a taste for architecture. He was appointed first architect to Christian IV, king of Denmark, but in 1605 he returned to his native country. After being employed for a time as a scenic and stage artist, he was appointed in 1610 sur veyor of the works to Henry, Prince of Wales. After the death of the prince he again visited Italy, and extended his knowledge and im proved his taste from the examination of the models of ancient and modern art. The ban queting house at Whitehall is a monument of his skill and science. At Winchester Cathedral he erected a screen in the style of classic antiquity. Like Wren he seems not to have duly appreciated the Pointed style of building. He built the front of Wilton House, in Wilt shire, for Philip, Earl of Pembroke, and was much employed by the court and by many of the nobility and gentry. He also designed the
scenery and decorations for masques — a species of dramatic entertainment fashionable in the early part of the 17th century. In these pieces the dialogues and songs were composed by Ben Johnson, who quarreled with Jones and abused him in epigrams and satires. Being a Roman Catholic and a partisan of royalty, he suffered in the Civil War, and in 1646 was forced to pay a heavy fine as a malignant or cavalier. As an author he is known by a work on Stonehenge, composed by command of King James I, in which he undertook to prove that Stonehenge was erected by the Romans, and was a hypwthral temple dedicated to the god Ccelus. He was the reviver of classical architecture in England, but he blended Gothic elements with the Italian style. Among his works besides those mentioned are the Greenwich Hospital, the old London Exchange and the portico of Saint Paul's Church and Earl Pembroke's house. Consult the 'Life' by Cunningham (1898) ; Loftie, Jones and Wren' (1893), and the papers by Blomfield in the Portfolio for 1889.