JONES, INIGO, who has been styled the English Palladio, and who forms no epoch in the history of architecture in this country, was born in the neighbourhood of St. Paul's in London, where his father was n respectable eloth-worker. Of his youth and education very littio is knowu, except that by his talent for drawing ha attracted the uotico of William earl of Pembroke, by whom he was sent abroad, where ho spent three or four years studying with his pencil, measuring and examining various remains of antiquity, as well as modern buildings.
At that period such work required much greater application and dili gence than at present, when almost every ancient building has been shown in engravings, and when the student has been previously familiarised at home with specimens of almost every style, includ ing those of edifices nvowedly Italian in their design. Jones, on the contrary, found himself In an entirely new world of art, for the ancient orders were then utterly unknown in England, nor were the Italian orders known, except as exhibited In diminutive columns, 'Abiders, entablatures, and pediments, applied merely as adscititious ornaments patched upon a degenerate Tudor style. So far the times woo eminently propitious to Jones, nothing more being required than fur him to transplant the full-grown Italian style, as he found It in the works of Palladio and that school, in order at once to obtain the cele brity of an originator. It was not however until many years after his first visit to Italy that he fully adopted the classic' taste.
About 1601 he was invited from Italy to Denmark by Christian IV., for whom he is said to have designed part of the buildings of the royal chiltean of Frederiksberg, and also the palace of Rosenberg. For tunately this Is doubtful, there being nothing in the architecture of either of these that would reflect any credit on the taste of our English Palladio. Yet, whether the patronage of the Danish monarch did much for Jones or not, in itself, it promoted his interest at the English court, Christian's sister being the queen of James I. Inigo returned to England in 1605, and was immediately employed at court in devising the machinery and decorations of the costly masques and pageants then in vogue. For a time Ben Jenson was associated with him in this occupation, but Jones's arrogance disgusted the somewhat crabbed poet, who, after a good deal of mutual bickering, threw up his share of the duty ; and subsequently introduced numerous refer ences in his plays to Jones, under contemptuous nick-names.
Jones was soon after his return to England appointed architect to the queen and to Prince Henry. None of his best works belong to this period, for it was not till after his second return from Italy, which he again visited in 1612, on the death of the prince, that he emanci pated himself from the mesquin style that had succeeded the downfal of Tudor architecture. Without this second residence in Italy he might have designed a palace for Whitehall quite as extensive as the one he actually made, but it would, no doubt, have been very different - in style. On his return ha was appointed to he surveyor-general of the royal buildings, and commenced his plans for that just mentioned. Soon after the only portion ever built of it, namely, the Banqueting House, was completed, he engaged, at the desire of James I., iu a task of a very different nature, that of ascertaining the origin and purpose of Stonehenge—a task, it is needless to say, for which his previous studies had in no way fitted him : with a ludicrous disregard of all probability he came to the conclusion that this rude circle of unhewn atones was a temple of Coelus, erected by the Romans.
After the building at Whitehall, Jones wan engaged upon the back front of old Somerset House, and in adding a Corinthian portico to the west front of old St. Panre. Both of them have been greatly extolled, more especially the latter, but neither remains. We have however another very celebrated production of Inigo's in the church of St. Paul, Covent Garden, in regard to which Quatremere de Quincy, though by no means unfavourable to him, says the most remarkable thiug about it is the reputation it enjoys. York Stairs, Asliburnham House, Westminster, a house originally built for the Earl of Lindesay on the west side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and Surgeons' Hall, yet remain among his works in the metropolis ; and when we say that the last mentioned has been asserted by some to have been one of his best, no very flattering notion is conveyed of the taste of his admirers. In fact the Banqueting House is almost the only specimen that accounts for his reputation, and even that we suspect is now more praised as a matter of course, than really admired. The deaigne for the palace of Whitehall, together with many others by Jones, were published in a folio volume by Kent. To give a list of all the buildings attributed to him, or even of the principal ones in addition to those mentioned, would occupy a considerable space. lnigo Jones died in June 1653, at the age of eighty.