1568571

SAHGB Publications Limited
'Varying with Reason': Inigo Jones's Theory of Design

Author(s): Gordon Higgott
Source: Architectural History, Vol. 35 (1992), pp. 51-77
Published by: SAHGB Publications Limited
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1568571
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'Varying with
Jones's
by GORDON
theory
reason':
Inigo
of design
HIGGOTT
Inigo Jones's architectural theory has attracted much scholarly comment over the past
forty years. According to the most widely accepted interpretation of his theory, Jones
was a Platonist, who believed that architecture should embody perfect geometrical or
numerical forms to reflect the harmonious structure of the cosmos. 1 According to this
view, Jones's design method was strictly rational and mathematical. Plans and elevations were generated on a modular system to incorporate harmonic ratios, so that the
building was 'an organic whole, completely definable in terms of metrical relationships'.2 Jones's inventive handling of Italian Renaissance architectural forms and his
studious imitation of classical Roman detail were both thought to be subject to the same
rigorous metrical discipline, which was 'founded on the metaphysical belief in the
universal efficacy of number'.3
Evidence for this Platonic interpretation was adduced from drawings and annotations by Jones and his assistant, John Webb. However, no proper distinction was
made between the differing design techniques of the two men, and it was assumed that
Webb's large corpus of theoretical drawings was produced under Jones's supervision
for a treatise on architecture.4 Rudolf Wittkower actually mistook a Webb design for a
Doric gateway for an original by Jones of 1621 (Figs 7, 9), and discussed Webb's
annotations on the drawing as evidence ofJones's use of whole number ratios based on
the module of the column diameter at its base.5 He also misattributed Webb's
annotations in his copy of Serlio to InigoJones, and relied heavily on ideas published by
Webb, in Jones's name, on the origins of Stonehenge, for which the original notes by
Jones have not survived.6
Advocates of the Platonic thesis have acknowledged that one aspect ofJones's theory
cannot easily be reconciled with the idea of proportional harmony. In the published
discussion which followed his influential paper at the Royal Institute of British
Architects in I952, Wittkower noted the vital importance of'the optical element in
architecture' and referred to an annotation by Jones on this subject in his copy of
Palladio's I QuattroLibri dell' Architettura.7Wittkower saw a contradiction between 'the
absolute character of Pythagoreo-Platonic harmonic measures and the constantly
varying impression received by a visitor to a building', and he suggested that this
contradiction 'was never resolved in any classical theory. It was not resolved by
Vitruvius, nor was it resolved in Inigo Jones's theory, but it is a subject of extreme
interest and importance'.
52
ARCHITECTURAL
HISTORY 35: 1992
In this paper I will seek to show that, contrary to Wittkower's assertion, Inigo Jones
did evolve a theory of architecture that reconciled the demands of classical precept and
proportion with the visual requirement that the parts of a building should correspond
harmoniously and appear correctly proportioned to the eye. I will demonstrate from a
study of the first-hand evidence of Jones's design method - marginal notes in his
copies of Renaissance treatises on art and architecture, notes on design in his Roman
Sketchbook, and examples of his use of proportion and detail on drawings and
buildings - that over a period of about twenty years, from about 1614 to the
mid-I63os, Jones evolved a coherent design theory based not on esoteric concepts of
number and geometry but on the fundamental principles of decorum, economy and
eurhythmia('beauty') expounded by Vitruvius in Book I, Chapter ii of the Ten Books of
Architecture.The central concept inJones's theory was 'varying with reason', by which
he meant the judicious selection and adaptation of classical architectural forms to create
well contrasted but harmonious effects according to the needs of a particular building
or part of a building. In his first phase of theorizing, Jones developed the idea of varying
ornaments according to his notion of the classical concept of decorum. Much later, he
acquired from his reading of Daniele Barbaro's I Dieci Libri dell' Architetturadi M.
VitruvioPollio (Venice, 1567) a clear understanding of how proportions could be varied
within limits to satisfy Vitruvius's all-important principle of eurhythmia,that quality of
refinement and perfection in the finished work which arose from the careful adjustment
of proportions to counter optical effects and which depended for its success on the
innate judgement of the architect.
NOTES ON DESIGN
Jones's earliest notes on design date from about 1608 to 1613 and consist almost entirely
of translations and summaries of comments by Palladio, Vitruvius, Barbaro, Serlio and
Vasari on architectural matters. As John Newman has shown, these early notes are
valuable indicators of the range and development of Jones's interests before the vital
formative influence of his second Italianjourney and the start of his career as Surveyor
of the King's Works in 1615.8
A striking characteristic of these early notes isJones's alertness to the role of detail in
the overall effect of a building and his interest in the rich and varied forms of ornament
found on Roman buildings illustrated by Palladio and Serlio. He developed an early
understanding of Vitruvius's concept of optical correction and of how the successful
application of this concept depended more on the architect's 'sharpnes ofwitt' than on
the application of rules.
Jones's tour of Italy fromJuly 1613 to September 1614 confirmed his enthusiasm for
the richness and variety of Roman architectural forms.9 He was particularly struck by
the varied effects of Roman brick and stone walling found on structures on the Via
Appia and at Baia, on the north side of the Bay of Naples. Of the 'Thearmi at Baia' he
wrote retrospectively against an illustration of opus reticulatum,in Book I of his Quattro
Libri, 'thear ar many wales wth mor courses of Brick and Sum great Bricke amongst for
ye Romans varried thes things according to thear Cappriccio mingling on wth an other.
so yt sheaud well'. 10He also acquired a feeling for how the parts of a classical building
INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN
53
should correspondin plan and elevation. The lack of correspondencebetween internal

and external orders on the ground floor of Scamozzi's Palazzo Trissino in Vicenza
promptedhim to remarkcriticallyon a flyleafofhis Palladioon 13August 1614:'theara
greatPallasbegon by Scamozio but ye orderwthin agreithnot wth thatwithout wch is
an Ionicke Portico that within is Dorricke and lower."'
His note about walling at Baia is one of a series of generalizingcomments that he
wrote in his Palladio and Roman Sketchbook in the first few months after his return
from Italy. In these notesJones sought principlesfor the design and use of architectural
ornamentbased on his experienceof Italyand his alreadyquite extensive knowledge of
Roman architecturefrom publishedsources. Severalstrandsin his thinking on variety,
invention and visual harmony came together for the first time in a note written on the
blank lower half of a page in Book IV of his Palladio in about I6I5. Jones had been
studying the Roman sources for Palladio's mouldings on pedestals and concluded in
this note that the Roman exemplarswere superiorto Palladio'sbecausethey exhibited
more contrast between the cornice, or cymatium, of the pedestal and its basement
moulding. He had in mind examples like the pedestal cornices on the Temple of
Minerva at Assisi, of which he had noted, beneathPalladio'sillustrationof this feature
in Book IV, page Io6 (Fig. I): 'This Cimatio variethmuch from the baaceand yt doith
well. but ye dentels cutt is somewhat ode [odd]': He then wrote on p. 98, with some
deletions and revised wordings:12
noat that-most[sic]sum of thes Cimatiosof ye Pedistalsvarryfrom thearbaacemore then
Palladiomakesthem in his ordersandit- nty Oppmiem[sic]yt -Shlld[sic]may be so for the
Cimatiobeingasa Cornishyt Sti4ld[sic]mayvarryfromye Baaceallthoughye mem[bers]beof
on natureetherin Streangthor Slendernesfor hearinConcistesye art of Composingthes
mouldinges
But in my opinionPalladioImmitatesye BestBacementesof theseantiquitiesasye Tempelsof
Pola. of nerva.of fortune.of Scicci.but allwaesthe libbertyof Composingwth reasonis not
Takenawayeyet [sic]but who followesye bestof ye ansientescannot muchearr
In his firstparagraphJonesemphasizesthe need for variationbetween the corniceand
basement mouldings of pedestals. The mouldings may vary from each other and yet
sharethe same character,of'Streangth' or 'Slendernes'.Jones changed 'most' to 'sum'
and 'Shuld' to 'may', and also deleted his characteristicphrase 'in my opinion',
suggesting that in this paragraphhe felt, on second thoughts, that he was expressing a
generaltruth ratherthan a personalview. In the next paragraphJonespraisesPalladio's
imitation of the best of antique basement mouldings but cautions against slavish
imitation of precedent by noting that the architectremains free to compose his own
ornaments 'with reason'.
The fundamentaldesign principleexpressedin this note is 'varyingwith reason'.The
architectshould look to the antiquefor the best models but he is still free to vary from
these models, provided he does so in a reasonedway. The 'reason',in this instance, is
the notion of ornaments adheringto their common natureor character.
Jones's awarenessof how the partsof a classicalbuildingcould be designedto express
visual characteristicslike 'strength'or 'slenderness'is apparentfrom a note written in
his Palladio on 23 January 1615, next to the sketches and notes he had made of the
entrancehall at Palladio's PalazzoThiene in Vicenza when he visited the building on
ARCHITECTURAL
54
HISTORY 35: I992
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annotatedcopy at WorcesterCollege, Oxford, Book IV, p. 106
II
55
14 August 1614. Reviewing his earlier reactions, Jones now praised the design of the
rusticated columns that carry the cross-vault of the entrance hall because he saw in them
two characteristics which were echoed in the rest of the hall: the slenderness of the
column shaft agreed with the tallness of the entrance hall while the rough-cut
rustication on the column shafts answered to the 'strength' and rusticated character of
the walls. Moreover, this strongly contrasted effect seemed to confirm the hand of
Giulio Romano rather than Palladio in the design of the palazzo:
P thearis an admirablediscretionin thes Bozzi. for ye Scapi [shafts]Q being sllenderthe pillar
answearthto ye heyght of the Placce and the adiuncteof ye Bozzi answers to ye strength and
rustick of the reste. 23 Ja: lond: bell caprittiodiJulio Romano13
In a contemporary note about the design of'chariotes and Poops of anticke shipes'
written above a sketch of an ornate ship's poop in his Roman Sketchbook, Jones
indicated that basic characteristics, such as richness and plainness, may be the governing factors in a design, reflecting the character of its subject matter. The ornaments of
chariots and poops, wrote Jones, 'ar varried according to the Subjecte ether rich or
Playne Capriccious or Sodo [solid]'. 4 Another regulating factor in the composition of
architectural features was the size and status of the building for which they were
intended. Recalling entrance porticoes he had seen in houses in Genoa and Vicenza,
Jones wrote in his Palladio on, or shortly after, 28January 16I 5: 'The Entrate ar varried
according to the greatnes of the houses as I obsearved at Vicenza whear ar the best that
ever I saaue'. 15
Jones drew together his ideas on the design and use of architectural ornament in two
long notes in his Roman Sketchbook on I9 and 2oJanuary I6I5.16 In the first noteJones
likens architectural composition to figurative drawing ('dessigne'). The functional
parts of the building are first studied separately, then put together and clothed with a
host of ornaments. Jones lists these ornaments, but makes no distinction between
architectural features associated with the orders, such as columns, cornices, pedestals
and pediments, and purely decorative motifs like festoons, vases, cherubs' heads and
cornucopias. This suggests that he considered all ornaments, whether architectural or
fanciful, to be subject to the same compositional rules:
As in dessigne first on Sttudiesthe partesof the boddy of man as Eyes noses mouthes Earesand
So of the rest to bee practickein the partesSepperatearon comm to put them togeathearto maak
a hoole figgure and cloath yt and consequently a hoole Storry wth all ye ornamentes
So in Architectureon must Studdy the Partesas loges EntransesHaaleschambersStairesdoures
windoues. and then adorrne them wth colloms. Cornishes. sfondati. Stattues. Paintings.
Compartimentes. quadraturs.Cartochi. tearmi. festoni. armes. Emprese. maskquari.folliami.
vasi. harpis. Puttini. ScarfinyeStratsi. Scroules, bacementes. balustriRissalti. lions, or eagles
clawes, converted in to folliami. Sattires. Serpentesvictories or angels. antickeheads in shells.
cherubins heads wth winges. heades of beastes. Pedistals. Cornucopias. basketes of fruites.
trofies.Juels['andagates'(addedlater)].medalie.draperies.frontispicesBroken. and Composed
In the second note Jones considers the design and use of fanciful ('Cappresious')
ornaments. These should first be designed plain, with their function in mind, and then
adorned. They should be composed with decorum, both as regards their use and the
order of architecture to which the ornaments belong. Jones cites as an example some
ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 35: 1992
ornate consoles designed by Tarquinio Ligustri da Viterbo, all of which have the
functional console element clearly defined:17
In all invensions of C[a]ppresiousornamentes, on must first designe ye Ground. or ye thing
plaine, as yt is for youse. and on that, varry yt. addorne yt. Compose yt wth deccorum
accordingto the youse. and ye orderyt is of. as in the CartousesI have ofTarquinnio ligustri of
vitterbo
Jones then goes on to consider where these 'Composed ornamentes', which were
introduced by Michelangelo and his followers, should be used in a building. In his
opinion they 'do not well in sollid Architectureand ye facciati[fa5ades]of houses', but
should be restricted to garden buildings and the insides of houses. A well ordered
building is like a wise man who, outwardly, 'carrietha gravitiin PublickePlaces. [. . .]
& yt inwardly hath his "mnd [sic] Immaginacy set free, and sumtimes liccenciously
flying out. as naturehirsealfdoeth often tymes Stravagantly'.So in architecture,Jones
concludes, 'ye outward ornamentesoft [ought] to be Sollid. proporsionableaccording
to the rulles. masculineandunaffected'.18The contrastbetween 'solid'exteriors, where
fancifulornamentsareeschewed, andenrichedinteriors,where all the ornamentslisted
by Jones in his note of I9 Januarywould be permitted, is re-emphasizedin the final
paragraph of the note, where Jones refers approvingly to the rooms ('Cimeras', i.e.
'Cameras'19) of ancient houses where varied and composed ornaments were used both
for the architecture and for the movable furniture: 'whears within the Cimeras yoused
by the ansientes the varried and Composed ornamentes both of the house yt Sealf and
the movables within yt ar most commendable'.
Here, as in his note about Roman pedestal mouldings, Jones is approving agreement
of effect between ornaments, but the concept has now been extended to embrace the
whole scheme of ornament for a building, inside and out. The principle is the same as
for the design of'chariotes and Poops ofanticke shipes'. Ornaments are to be composed
with their subject, or function, in mind and made consistent in their nature, so that
internal ornaments may be 'Cappresious' and those external, 'Sollid'. Moreover, they
are to adhere to the order of architecture to which they belong.
This last requirement is the clue to Jones's thinking on the design and use of
architectural ornaments. Vitruvius's theory of decorum states that buildings, particularly temples, should be designed with ornaments that both are appropriate to their
function and belong to the accustomed usages of the architectural orders.20 Thus the
Doric order will be suitable for temples dedicated to Minerva, Mars, and Hercules,
'since the virile strength of these gods makes daintiness entirely inappropriate to their
houses'. The Corinthian order, with its 'rather slender outlines, its flowers, leaves, and
ornamental volutes' will lend propriety to temples dedicated to Venus, Flora, and other
'delicate divinities', and the Ionic will be suitable for gods of middle position, likeJuno
and Diana, for it combines 'the severity of the Doric and the delicacy of the Corinthian'.
The order itself should follow tradition, and not contain ornaments that are customarily associated with another order, as when Ionic dentils are placed in a Doric cornice,
or Doric triglyphs over an Ionic capital.
Jones's concepts of strength and slenderness originate in Vitruvius's characterization
of the orders, but the emphasis he gives to these concepts as regulatory factors shows
his understanding of mid-sixteenth-century Italian ideas on how the orders could be
57
appliedin modern circumstancesand variedin their detailsaccordingto their purpose.

Serlio was the first majorItaliantheoristto characterizethe orderswith a consistent set
and solid (sodo)of the Tuscan to the delicate
of stylistic terms, from the robust (robusto)
(delicato)and ornate (ornato)of the Corinthian and Composite.21Jones was studying
Serlio's Book IV as early as I6Io, and summarized the Venetian theorist's recommendation that the details of the Doric order may be varied from solid to delicate
according to the degree of'Dillicasie or strength' in the character of the person.22 By
this timeJones would also have been familiar with the passage of commentary in Book I
of his Vitruvius in which Daniele Barbaro advises the modern architect to invent new
orders and schemes of ornament suitable for Christian buildings. Their ornaments,
however, should be composed 'with reason [... ] serving decorum and not serving his
caprices'.23
During his tour of Italy Jones began annotating Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo's Trattato
dell' arte, della pittura, scoltura, et architettura(Milan, I584).24 Lomazzo went much
further than Barbaro or Serlio by suggesting that the orders should be composed with
regard only to their salient characteristics. In one of several chapters in Book VI
covering all forms of architectural ornaments, Lomazzo writes that modern architects
should not be bound by the rules of Vitruvius or Serlio in the design of the orders but
should emulate the decorative richness of ancient examples.25 This was to be achieved
by creating greater contrast between the carving of members, while ensuring that the
members agreed with each other in character, be it in prettiness or roughness
('leggiadria o rozzezza'). Ornaments, however, should be made to follow the 'nature'
of the order, whether the 'heavy and solid' of the Tuscan and Doric or the 'pretty and
slender' of the Corinthian and Composite, or again the middling character of the Ionic,
which is 'lighter and less solid, and more carved and worked' ('piu leggiadre, manco
sodo, e piu intagliate e lavorate') than the Doric. Jones responded to Lomazzo's
argument in two annotations datable to the period of the Italian visit and shortly after.
Next to Lomazzo's instruction that the members should agree with each other in
character he wrote: 'Thos members of cornices best yt [t]hat ar varied in shap[e] but
alliky in being ether playn or adorned',26 and alongside the passage on the Corinthian
order he commented, 'how ye Corinthia[n] must vary from the Ionic slendour
membe[r]s & intaglio'.27
Of immediate relevance to his Roman Sketchbook note of 20 January I615 is a
passage in Vasari's Lives (I568), on the life of Baccio d'Agnolo, which Jones first
annotated in about I6Io.28 Vasari wrote that architecture should be 'masculine, solid
and simple' but then gracefully enriched with a varied subject matter which neither
alters by too little or too much the order of architecture nor offends the discerning eye:
E nel vero, le cosa de'architetturavogliono esseremaschie, sode e semplici, ed arrichitepoi dalla
graziede disegno, e da un suggetto varionella composizione, che non altericol poco o col troppe
ne l'ordine dell'architetturane la vista da chi intende.
Jones translated this:
Architeturamust be fearme/ Sollid/ Simpell and Inrichedwth ye graceof desineand of a varried
Subiect in the Compossition that wth nether too littell nor to much alterithe ye Order of
architecturenor ye sight of ye Iuditious.
58
ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 35: 1992
He added the word 'Sollid' to his translation on a later reading of the text, probably at
about the time he was writing his note in the Roman Sketchbook,29 for he echoed
Vasari's first phrase when he wrote that the 'outward ornamentes' of architecture
should be 'Sollid. proporsionable according to the rulles. masculine and unaffected'.
Vasari's insistence on variety in the composition of ornaments, his characterization
of architecture in its unadorned state as masculine and solid, and his notion of the order
as a regulating factor in ornamental design, are the guiding themes in Jones's Roman
Sketchbook note. In later annotations Jones refined his thinking on how architectural
members could be varied from classical precept and yet be consistent with the character
and purpose of the design.
During the I63os when he was designing his last great work, the restoration of
St Paul's Cathedral in London, Jones scrutinized Book IV of his Quattro Libri for
information on the design of classical Roman detail. He compared examples of
particular mouldings and considered the reasons behind those unusual variations from
precept that he had first noted in his Palladio more than two decades earlier. Jones's
conviction that Roman architects understood much better than Palladio how to obtain
richly contrasted effects by varying the mouldings in such a way that the balance of the
whole was not disturbed was validated when he looked closely at how some unusual
Roman motifs fitted in visually with the members to which they belonged. He
observed on Palladio's illustration of the pediment cornices on the Temple of Minerva
at Assisi (Fig. I) that the leaf carving on the large gola moulding, which took the place
of modillions on the upper cornice of the pediment, agreed in its decorative effect with
the modillions in the same position on the lower cornice. This gave him the reason for
the use of this type of carving on a moulding that was normally left plain: 'The carving
with leaves is donn to answer with the carving of the modiliones & plancier [soffit] they
only beeing carved ye rest plaine'.30 Further down the margin of the same page he
observed of the unusual plain ovolo moulding on both cornices: 'E the cimatium
lisbiume or ovolo uncut in boath thes cornishes not usiall. but it agrees with the plaines
of the Architrave'.31
A variant, not dissimilar to the gola on the Temple of Minerva, was the large ovolo
moulding carved with egg and dart which took the place ofmodillions in the cornice of
the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina in Rome. Jones modelled the cornice of his
portico on the west front of St Paul's Cathedral on this example (Fig. I5) so was
particularly anxious to affirm its classical credentials. Whereas Palladio had merely
noted the substitution of the ovolo for the modillions,32Jones foundjustification for the
choice of this motif, with its pronounced egg and dart carving, in the contrast that both
this and the fluted corona moulding made with the two plain mouldings above them, at
the top of the cornice:
the great ovolo was don I conceave becaues ther wear no cartouses to make shaddow / but
Palladioobserved not this for the ovolo and coronabeing only carvedagreeswell with ye plaines
of ye wauf [cyma recta]and golett [cyma reversa].
Jones's most enthusiastic remarks about ancient architecture were reserved for
examples of variation from customary practice that both were visually pleasing and
could bejustified on grounds of decorum. He wrote admiringly in his QuattroLibri of a
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Doric order.
Doric
frieze, however, had been varied by substituting collection,
gorgons
which he made a drawing that was later copied, or emulated,
Webb
by John
(Fig. 2):33
& the Architrave at Ar: House wch I thinke was of the tempell of minerva at Smima by reason of
ye gorgons heades in the mettopes of [the] freese beetwene ye Cartottzi wch are in the steed of
heads for metopes an entablaturees

for
Toin
Lord Arundel's collection,
of varying
ther o[r]ders according to the nateures triglyphs.
of the gods to whome ye Tempels weare dedicated.
he
details of the
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to suitwas
or
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which
latheper opied,
emulated,
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The
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turn implied
ther
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was suggested
the wchto
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&
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thewhich
had twoa
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frieze, inwhich
gorgons'
ye gorgt.
in the mettopes
frarchitrave
of[the] mouldings amongst the Roman examples in
Jons heades
heads
for metopes
and consoles
triglyphs.
this was
instance trand
of varying
ToJones, early
Book
ofnoimitated
which
he had
Trigliffies
a the Quattro
in hisan areer
Libri, all for
by composedlating
to
about
the
the
Pallather
o[r]ders
laudatording thents
gods margins of the pls weare dedicated.
hese notes in thead63os he compared the Roman examples favourably withthimplieda
from Asia Minor, but then noticwever,
hat Palladio's own architravecymatiuting
the gorgons'
thetablaturefor the Composite order in Book I lacked the richness of contras
intended. Of
reversa ratiumofthanovere
further
intto
overest
wascymath
architravebelo,and Jones considered tha two
with cavetto
and is in yeovolo
contrvolo
agrees carvedbetter
leaf ornamentto
warrchitraveof ye tempell ofpallas Ar:
from Asia Minor, but then noticed that Palladio's own architrave
cymatium on his
had found
he
dart. Jones
thsimilar
architraven
amongst
the Roman examples in
mouldings
again
compared
the ibri, all
Book
Quattro
werhich
he had notedearied, and
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he
andIV
Palladio
had
admired onexamples
the ancient
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tho
effectPalladio's
e
laudatorycough
plee
mins
thetht
ates.
Retin
character.
cavetto over a cyma reversa rather than over an ovolo, and Jones considered that the
than
in decorative effect
theseoless appealing to Jones
vcompariations
were wi
favourably
examples o
and decorum. He wrote favourably in
entabliberate
of contrast
simplicity of desite ordreasonichness
Roman originals the ancient examples were more varied, and had an agreement of
Serlio
of
brick
and
'ovohis
agrees better
o Ar:
stonis
in ye
arrche
ofpallas
effect
achieved
through
the use
of formscourses
that
were
complementary
in character.
(opus
walling with
alternating
listatum)
Rome:
House'.
had found
again
'thatvariations
when he in
compared
Palladio'sissia
No less He
appealing
to
Jones than
decorative
effect were wth
examples of
mouldngled
deliberate simplicity of design for reasons of cost and decorum. He wrote favourably in
his Serlio of the walling with alternating courses of brick and stone (opus listatum)on the
'Porticus of Pompeo' in Rome: 'This Opera Latterissia m[i]ngled wth Stone doth well
6o
HISTORY 35: 1992
ARCHITECTURAL
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..,
iJ
6i
to varry from y[e] Dillicaci of Tempels a[nd] savith chargis'.36 In a similar vein, he
observed of the combined architrave and frieze on Palladio's illustration of the Palazzo
for Giambattista dalla Torre in Verona: 'this kynd of Architrave and frieese turned into
a faccia doth well and Savith charge', and he used this detail on the side elevation of the
at Newmarket
Prince's Lodging
in
I6I9.37
Economy, or distribution (distributio),was one of Vitruvius's fundamental principles

of architecture. 38 It required proper management of materials, and the use of forms of
construction appropriate to the purpose of the building. Jones was struck by Vitruvius's account of how the Hellenistic architect Hermogenes had invented the pseudodipteral temple by eliminating the inner row of columns in the dipteral temple form to
create a wider walkway. This had saved expense and labour while not detracting from
the general effect of the building. Through such ingenuity Hermogenes had, in Jones's
paraphrase of Vitruvius's encomium, 'left to posteriti ye fount from whens they draw
all ye resonns of the arrte'.39
When describing his basilica at Fano in Book V, Vitruvius comments how 'the
greatest dignity and beauty' may be achieved, and expense saved, by the omission of
the second tier of internal columns and the ornamental entablature.40 In a note written
in four stages between about I6Io and the mid-I63os, Jones at first records the fact that
Vitruvius varied from ancient Greek practice by omitting the frieze and cornice, and
that the design as a whole was well judged because of the constraints of the site, and
r'::
it
*V'L::
'.lf; ,vkF*
_____
.......
:.;__.__ _.
.._
Fig.. 4 D. Barbaro, I Dieci Libri

dell' Architettura di M. Vitruvio
. Pollio (Venice,1567),p. 221,
i <
Vitruvius's basilica at Fano
-^ '^ *illustrating
iL
',i
c*
((c. 27 B.C.). Inigo ones's annotated
^ - v" . copy (Devonshire Collections,
'14~~~
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detail
Chatsworth),
Ji
P~i4'4-~;-,
then makes the connection between Vitruvius and Hermogenes, both of whom
achieved a more imposing effect by eliminating basic architectural features (Fig. 4):
This Bassillicavittruvious orderedat fano/ me thinkes that vittruvious bouldly varied from ye
ancientgreekes leaving out ye cornish and frees/ this Invensiondid not a mis in a Poore Place in
respectof Roome /but he professethto varry as hermogenes did in ye Temple psudodipteros&
so it bee donn with reason & proportion it is to be commended.
5
62
ARCHITECTURAL
HISTORY 35: 1992
The last of the four notes demonstrates Jones's mature conviction that variety,
governed by reason, was fundamental to good design, and involved the functional as
well as the decorative aspects of architecture.
NOTES ON PROPORTION
Jones's ideas on proportion in architecture can be traced to the theory of Vitruvius and
to passages of commentary by Daniele Barbaro which give emphasis to the scope
within Vitruvius's system for varying proportions within limits to allow for the optical
factor. Jones found little guidance on theoretical principles in the text of Palladio's
Quattro Libri, and he made no notes in Book II about proportional ratios in Palladio's
villa plans. However, he referred frequently to Palladio's illustrations of Roman and
Vicentine buildings for clues on how to proportion individual architectural elements,
from the plans of rooms to the design of individual mouldings.
Vitruvius defines proportion at the beginning of Book III of the Ten Books as 'a
correspondence among the measures of the members of an entire work, and of the
whole to a certain part selected as standard. From this results the principles of
symmetry'. Although there and in Book I (ii, 4), and again in Book VI (ii, I), Vitruvius
recommends the use of a 'certain part', or module, as a governing measure in the
proportioning of buildings, the emphasis in his accounts of how buildings and the
architectural orders should be proportioned is on correspondence between individual
members, rather than on relationships between the members and a common module.41
A circular temple with peristyle was to have its internal diameter equal to the height of
the columns; the height of its rotunda, excluding the finial, equal to one half the
diameter of the whole building; and the finial equivalent to the height of the column
capital.42 Similarly, in the proportioning of the Ionic order, the height of the base was
to relate to the column diameter, but the height of the dentils in the Ionic cornice was to
correspond to the height of the middle fascia of the architrave, and the total projection
of the corona and dentils was to equal the height from the frieze to the cymatium at the
top of the corona.43
Vitruvius's system of answering ratios allowed for adjustments to the sizes of
members according to their distance from the ground or their spacing apart. The Ionic
architrave was to be a half-column diameter high if the columns were 12 to 15 feet high,
but for column heights of I5 to 20 feet, 20 to 25, and 25 to 30, an increasingly taller
architrave was specified in ratios taken from the column height.44 For Daniele Barbaro,
this aspect of Vitruvius's theory illustrated how the proportions of a building could be
varied within certain limits at the discretion of the architect to produce a more pleasing
effect. This was especially true of the fine adjustments needed to counter certain optical
effects, as for example when corner columns had to be thickened by one fiftieth or the
curvature had to be drawn for the entasis of the column shafts. Such adjustments, wrote
Barbaro in his commentary to Book III, were examples of the application of eurhythmia,
the principle which Vitruvius defines in Book I as 'beauty and fitness in the adjustments
of the members'. Taking his cue from Vitruvius's account of optical adjustments in
Book VI, where the Roman author emphasizes the need for ingenuity rather than
scientific doctrine in modifying the proportions of a building to suit the nature or needs
63
of the site, Barbaro states in Book III that the design of entasis 'is more a matter of
discretion, and dexterity, than art or rules'; much depends on the siting of the column,
and for that reason we should not be surprised when we find antique columns with
proportions that do not accord exactly with the rules of Vitruvius; it is matter of greater
and lesser limits, 'but between these limits one can proceed with reason'.45
Barbaro's theory of varying with reason between limits echoes Vasari's notion that
ornaments should be varied so as not to alter the order of architecture 'by too little or
too much'. Both ideas sprang from a desire by mid-sixteenth-century Italian theorists
to provide a rationale for variety and invention within the confines of the classical
system of design. Barbaro borrowed his theory from Aristotle's doctrine of the mean in
the Ethics,46and he expounded the idea in several passages of commentary on Vitruvius
that were annotated by Inigo Jones. He wrote after Vitruvius's list of the forms of
temples (III,ii, I) that just as the orator combines differing modes and figures of speech
to achieve a striking effect, so the architect should vary the forms and proportions
within any given manner: 'thus I say that mixing with reason in buildings the
proportions of one manner, either composing or taking away, can result in a beautiful
form in the middle'.47 Jones noted here in about I6Io: 'An exelett Comparason of
Barbaro betwene the Orrator and the architecte'. Further on, after Vitruvius's discussion of the origins of the orders (IV, i, I-Io), Barbaro speculated that the proportions of
the orders were themselves devised through the application of the mean. The idea came
from Alberti's De reaedificatoria(1486), and it gave Barbaro a principle for varying from
set proportions. At first the extreme proportions of 1:6 and I:Io found in the human
body were tried, but they were thought not pleasing 'to that innate feeling within us by
which we are able to judge'.48 Taking the mean of 8 between 6 and Io, and then the
mean of 7 between 6 and 8, and that of 9 between 8 and io, a series of pleasing
proportions was devised. Pure and simple proportion, however, does not always
please, and just as in music there are some sounds which are sweet to our ears, and yet
are not placed amongst the consonances, 'so I say that everyone must cease from
marvelling when they find in many [ancient] works measures that are somewhat varied
from the precepts, because it is enough for them to be situated between the extremes of
greater and lesser limits, varying the means with subtlejudgement; and thus Vitruvius
regulated the heights of columns by the spaces between them and never went beyond
these limits'. 49
Jones paid close attention to Barbaro's comments on varying between extremes,
noting in the mid-I63os against the passage in Book IV (p. I65): 'the simitri putes too
simpely the measures and proportiones', and 'it is alloud between the greater & lesser
exses to varry ye meane withJudgment'. Further back, against Barbaro's discussion on
varying within limits for the diminution and entasis of columns, he wrote (p. 133),
'termination betwene the more & the less', and added against Vitruvius's text about the
thickening of corner columns (p. 132), 'Exampel of Eurithmia'. ThatJones absorbed
the concept of varying within limits is demonstrated by another late note, next to
Vitruvius's description of how steps should vary in height between 9 and Io inches and
in depth between '/2 and 2 feet (III, iv, 4): 'the high of the steppes terminated betwene
ye highest and the lowest and most thinges in architecture have thes terminationes &
not to pass them'.50
64
ARCHITECTURAL
HISTORY 35: 1992
The idea that ancient architects proportioned their buildings in a flexible manner,
adjusting measures within certain limits according to the needs of the site, informs
many ofJones's annotations about Roman ornaments in Book IV of his Quattro Libri.
Comparing an unusually tall Corinthian capital with a small abacus on the 'Temple of
Jove' (p.-47) with the capital of the Temple of Mars Ultor, which is lower but with a
larger abacus (p. 21), he wrote next to the first example, in the mid-I63os, 'E this
capitell being higher then on diameter of ye pillar. the Abaco is made less then is
accostomed: se the contrary of this fo 21 how ye ancientes varied wth reason'. Even
small details like the grooves in a channelled rusticated wall could be varied in size,
within limits, depending on the situation. He noticed in his Palladio that the channelling in the rusticated walling of the Temple of Mars Ultor was 'in hight / io part of ye
Asler and somwhat mor' (IV, p. 22), but found in his copy of Vignola's Regola delli
cinqueordinid'architetturaan example of channelled walling with grooves 1/13 the height
of the ashlar block.51 These two proportions gave him the limits for varying the height
of the channel according to circumstances, and he wrote in the margin of Vignola's
plate, in the I630s:
the rustickeis cutt in high I/13 partof the plaineaslerallmost/ in depthas much as the hight/ this
is ranker[i.e. more excessive52]then in palladioin ye tempell of mars ye revengerfo 22 but it
may be varied betwene thes too at pleasurefor ye site and distance.
The note indicates the method behind many ofJones's annotations in the QuattroLibri
and his concern with how parts of a building are proportioned in relation to their height
from the ground. In two series of notes, one datable c. 1615-18 and the other of the
mid-I63os, Jones analyses the heights of statues in relation to the architectural order or
walling beneath, in each case looking for a whole-number fraction - usually I/4, I/s or
/6 - of the corresponding member, which may be the column and full entablature or
just the column and architrave.53 The technique was aimed not at establishing hard and
fast rules, but limits within which a proportion could be chosen that suited the needs of
a particular site.
Central to Jones's thinking on proportional harmony was the Vitruvian concept of
symmetry, or commensurability, between the members. Just as ornaments had to
agree in character, so proportions had to answer one another in corresponding ratios.
Jones's method of analysing proportions in his Palladio is thoroughly Vitruvian.
Comparisons rarely involve the column diameter but are between two sets of dimensions that relate to each other visually or structurally. Often the source for these
comparisons is Vitruvius. Examples include notes on the proportional heights of
drums and domes on peripteral temples;54 on the depths of beams in relation to the
width of a temple;55 on the widths of coffers in the soffits of porticoes in relation
to the width of the capital abacus;56 and on the projection of an egg and dart ovolo
moulding in relation to its height.57 Jones's lengthy analysis of the proportions of the
so-called Temple of le Galluce (Temple of Minerva Medica) in Book IV takes as its
starting point the main external diameter, as in Vitruvius's description of the proportions of circular temples referred to above. In his notes Jones reveals a sequence of
corresponding ratios related to subdivisions of this dimension, and concludes that the
whole plan is 'countersorted strongly and gratiousli wth good correspondence'.58
65
However a building was proportioned, the final effect depended on subtle adjustments made by the architect to the proportions according to the needs of the site or the
demands of the eye. Jones responded keenly to Barbaro's exposition of the principle of
eurhythmia, by echoing his commendation, in Book VI, chapter ii, that the architect
'makes a great gain in worth when he is forced to depart from the set symmetries and in
no way subtracts from the beauty of the appearance': 'great creditte to the Architecte
whe[n] being forced to goe fro[m] the simitri nothing is taken [from] the bauti of the
aspecte'.59 His strength of feeling on this subject comes over in his dismissal of
Scamozzi as 'purblind' ('dim-sighted' or 'obtuse') for not understanding why Palladio's
Composite cornice had large modillions and only a single cyma moulding at the
bottom (Fig. 3). As the Composite order was normally placed highest on a building,
the modillions 'stod far from ye eye'.60 The ancients had realized the need to enlarge the
uppermost members on a building and, asJones observed in the top margin of the page,
'when a cornish stood farr from the eye maad the members great and som times Put
modiglions in the freese wch mad Arrchitrave freese and Cornish sheau affar of all on
cornish. this Secrat Scamozio being purblind under stoode nott'.
Eurhythmiawas, above all, the 'quallity that Contenteth',61 the undefinable element
that contributed to visual pleasure. The special importance that Jones attached to
eurhythmiais indicated by his recognition of the same concept in Alberti's theory of
beauty in architecture. Where Alberti states in Book IX of the Italian edition of De re
aedificatoriathat grace and beauty arise from the quality of leggiadria ('comeliness',
'lightness'), which results from the harmonious combination of members that are
ordinarily different by nature, Jones wrote in the margin in about 16I 5, 'Eurithmia or
leggidria what'. He went on to note Alberti's theory that leggiadriais 'Joyned with the
soule' and is the 'principall intent of nature'.62
DRAWINGS
AND BUILDINGS
How did Jones put these ideas into practice? A study of his surviving drawings and
buildings suggests that at the initial, setting-out stage of a plan or elevation, Jones was
guided by the precepts in Vitruvius and Palladio on room proportions and ceiling
heights. He favoured the square and double square proportions for his room plans, and
these same ratios are frequent in the larger divisions of his elevations. However, at the
more detailed level of design, Jones was less constrained by precedent and proportional
formulae. Pragmatism and a quest for visual coherence led him to modify his larger
ratios and mould the proportions.and ornaments of his orders to suit the purpose of the
design or the distance that parts of the building would be from the eye. Success
depended on Jones's judgement in adjusting proportions and ornaments to achieve a
unified effect.
Many of Jones's room plans follow the types recommended by Palladio in the
Quattro Libri as 'the most beautiful and proportionable'.63 These are the circle, the
square, the square and a third, the diagonal of the square (rectangle with its longer side
equal to the diagonal of the square of the shorter side), the square and a half, the square
and two thirds, and the double square. Jones annotated Palladio's illustration of these
room types and their associated forms of vaulting in Book I, Chapter xxiv (Fig. 5), and
66
ARCHITECTURAL
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HISTORY 35: 1992
:'
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Book I,.54,
detail
Quattro Libri,i#iitecturail~
InigoJones's
centralize il,c ~7(rts

Library/RIBA)
Fig. 6 InigoJones, design
centralizedvilla, c. 1617 (British

Architectural Library/RIBA)
incorporated five of these proportions in his plan for a centralized villa of c. 1617
(Fig. 6). Included on this plan are the square and a third (i5 X 20 ft), the square and
two-thirds
(I 2 X 20 ft staircase compartment)
and the double square (20 X 40 ft loggia).
The square and circular room shapes on this plan also occur on the plan by Jones of
c. 16i6 ascribed to the Queen's House.64 The awkward proportion of 20 X 29 feet on
the latter drawing was probably Jones's approximation of the diagonal of the square,
since 20 X VT2 is 28.3.65 AsJohn Orrell has shown, the i V2 'diagonal' proportion is
frequent on theatre plans by Inigo Jones and John Webb and derives from Serlio's ad
quadratumproportional scheme for the Renaissance indoor theatre.66
Jones's use of the double-square proportion for the plan of the Banqueting House
interior in Whitehall can be traced to Vitruvius's stipulation (VI, iii, 8) that dining
rooms and Corinthian, tetrastyle, and Egyptian halls should be twice as long as they are
wide. ThatJones had such halls in mind when he was designing the Banqueting House
in 1619 is demonstrated by notes he wrote in March that year against Palladio's
reconstructions of the interiors of the Corinthian and tetrastyle halls in Book II,
Chapter ix of the Quattro Libri.67Jones refers in his notes to doubled corner columns
and other features that were employed inside the Banqueting House. The double-cube
proportion
at the Banqueting
House
(55 X 55 X iioft),
the cube of the hall at the
Queen's house (40 X 40 X 40 ft) and the double cube of the main internal space at
Somerset House Chapel (30 X 30 X 6o ft) also arose from a precept; in this case
Palladio's recommendation at the beginning of Chapter xxiii in Book I that rooms with
flat ceilings should be as high as they are broad.
When setting out his elevationsJones often sought to tie the larger elements together
through shared dimensions and ratios. His sketch elevation for the Temple Bar arch of
1636-38 is a square of 60 feet, measured on the scale of the drawing, and has an attic
equal in height to the columns of the main order (24 ft) and two-thirds the height of the

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67
.._.:
...7~b*t~a,
Fig.
Inigo Jones,
Jones_ design
design for a gateway
gateway
Fig. 7 Inigo
at BeaufortHouse, Chelsea, 1621 (British
ArchitecturalLibrary/RIBA)
Fig. 8 InigoJones, BeaufortHousegateway design.

Detail of entablatureshowingmodularproportions
whole lower order (36 ft).68 Square and double square ratios are common on Jones's
gateway elevations,69 and square proportions occur in the larger divisions of a few
facade designs, the best example being his New Exchange elevation of i 6o8, which was
set out in five equal squares, each 5s/ x 5I/8 inches.70 Other elevations, however, do
not yield squares or any obvious set of commensurate ratios, amongst them the
Banqueting House facade designs (1619) and the second ofJones's two schemes for the
Prince's Lodging at Newmarket Palace (I618-19).71 Significantly, Jones's first Newmarket elevation follows its Scamozzian source in being contained almost exactly
within a double square, from the ground to the top of the main cornice. 72 This indicates
that, at a more advanced stage in the design process, Jones readily abandoned geometric
formulae when additional practical and visual considerations came into play.
The most revealing example ofJones's proportioning method is his design of I621
for a Doric garden gateway at Sir Lionel Cranfield's Beaufort House in Chelsea (Fig. 7).
At the setting-out stage Jones used his scorer and dividers to mark out a scheme of
commensurate ratios for the basic elements of the arch. The gate piers were to be 3 feet
wide (lines b c on the plate), and this dimension was repeated for the entablature height.
It was also half the width of the arch (6 ft). Subsequently, however, Jones marked a
second set of scorelines 3 inches on the scale further out (line a), giving 3 feet 3 inches to
68
ARCHITECTURAL
HISTORY 35: 1992
each of the piers. By widening the piers Jones was obliged to set his column centres
further apart. This disrupted the correct modular patterning that Jones could have
achieved for the members of the frieze in his entablature (triglyphs I module wide,
metopes V/2modules wide) had his columns, with their diameters of I foot 5I/3inches
(i.e. 2 modules, each 82/3 in.), been set in the centres of 3-feet-wide gate piers.73
Widening the column spacing meant that Jones had to broaden the proportions of the
members of his frieze if the outer triglyphs were to fall plumb over the columns as
tradition and good taste demanded. 74Jones therefore broadened his triglyphs by nearly
I/2 module. His metopes are a canonic I/2 modules wide, but Jones also lowered his
frieze, from the customary I1/2modules to IS/I2 modules (Fig. 8). Thus the normally
square metopes are slightly broader than they are high and the triglyphs are considerably squatter than the canonic i : /2 proportion. The emphasis on breadth and mass in
the upper part of the design has been enhanced by the use of a pediment with a shallow
proportion and a deep cornice. 75 To add to the 'solid' character of his design, Jones used
a simple form of Doric impost (that of Vignola) and a reduced version of the Doric
capital, in which the abacus has been omitted and the ovolo enlarged.
By modifying the proportions and details of his Doric order, Jones made the
members 'agree' in those characteristics of 'strength' and 'solidity' that he associated
with the Doric and found praiseworthy in the rusticated entrance hall of the Palazzo
Thiene. The difference betweenJones's approach and one that adheres faithfully to the
Doric modular system may be judged by comparing Jones's elevation with the design
by John Webb for a Doric gateway that Wittkower misattributed to Jones (Fig. 9). On
Webb's design the pier width of 2 feet I I inches is equal to the entablature height and is
equivalent to 4 Doric modules of 83/4inches each. The architrave, frieze and cornice are
I, 1/2 and I/2 modules high respectively (i.e. 4 modules), the triglyphs are I module
wide, and the metopes enclosing the central plaque of the frieze are exactly square. The
pediment is proportioned to Scamozzi's recommended ratio of 2:9.76 The design has a
pleasing regularity but lacks those massy and robust qualities which mark outJones's
elevation as an original interpretation of the Doric in its Vitruvian characteristic of
'virile strength'.
Jones put the proportional ideas on the design into practice on the gateway itself,
which survives in the grounds of Chiswick House in London (Fig. Io). Here, the frieze
is actually lower (I/3 modules) and the triglyphs wider (i/4 modules) than on the
77
drawing. The capitals on the front elevation at Chiswick do not follow the unorthodox form on the design, but on the rear elevation of the gate (Fig. io), Jones introduced
a curious flattened version of the Doric base and changed the guttae beneath the
triglyphs from the customary wedge-shaped 'nails', used on the front elevation, to
shallow triangular dentils. Those two variations are without precedent in Renaissance
published versions of the Doric order, but they enhance the severely plain and flattened
character of the rear elevation and underline its subordinate status.
Behind Jones's desire to emphasize 'strength' in Doric design lay his conviction that
external ornaments should be 'masculine and unaffected'. This basic predilection led
him to abandon the Doric in favour of the more rudimentary Tuscan order for
gateways and entrances from 1623 onwards. Influenced by Serlio's rusticated Tuscan
order, Jones aspired to effects of great strength by combining heavy banded stone work
__
...
..
69
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Fig. 9 John Webb,designfor a Doricgateway,

c. 164os(BritishArchitectural
Library/RIBA)
Fig. Io
.* . ,
: ... ,;
?, ; ' ' .
..
:.
The Beaufort House gateway, 1621,
in thegroundsof ChiswickHouse, Hounslow.

Rear elevation
with starkly simple variants of Tuscan ornaments.78 His most expressive design in this
genre is the elevation for a carriage gate at the Duke of Lennox's Hatton House,
Holborn, in 1623, where over-sized mouldings and a pulvinated frieze in the entablature echo the bulging and ponderous treatment of the rusticated walling on the arch and
pilasters (Fig. II).
While in his external architecture Jones aimed increasingly at effects of strength and
simplicity, his handling of internal ornaments became more enriched and decorative.
This may be due in part to the feminine influence of his chief patron after 1625, Queen
Henrietta Maria. The Doric screen at the Queen's Catholic Chapel in Somerset House,
I630-3 5, wasJones's most ornate interpretation of the order, with fluted columns from
Scamozzi's intricate version of the Doric and a luxuriant entablature modelled on the
antique fragment thatJones had so much admired in Lord Arundel's collection (Figs 12,
2). The same antique source servedJones for a design of friezes with console 'triglyphs'
and ornamental 'metopes' for a room at Henrietta Maria's Wimbledon Palace in 1641.79
If Jones strove consciously to match the design of his orders to the character of the
patron, his catafalque for KingJames at Westminster Abbey in 1625 could be read as a
comment on the personality of the King. The Doric columns have Vitruvian Ionic
bases and the entablature is of slender proportions with a dentilled cornice (Fig. 13).
ARCHITECTURAL
70
-i
"e:.
..ie,.*
.:
....
":t:.'':..
....?.... *'.1"
-Bmii
H
:'.':^^^"'lft::"
]ll^
Ea''"'
~.'.'.'::'.'
,M
Eer.....
Fig. ii InigoJones, design

for a Tuscancarriagegateway
at Hatton House, Ely Place,
Holborn, 1622-23, detail
(BritishArchitectural
Library/RIBA)
HISTORY 35: 1992
.....r.
..
..
,,
......
..
::
i^
B :.***"'~'"....-..'... .
-:":":.:"
.....:
... .
..::t:'ii
....
- :.. .. ::....*.::'::..
. .
Fig. 12
Engravingof the chapel

screenat SomersetHouse (163o35), madefor Isaac Ware's
Fig. 13 InigoJones, desigl

for a catafalquefor King
James I at Westminster )
Designs of Inigo Jones and
Abbey, 1625, detail
others, c. 1731, detail (British

ArchitecturalLibrary/RIBA)
(WorcesterCollege, Oxford
Both variants tend more towards delicacy than strength and aptly express KingJames's
partly vigorous and worldly, partly retiring character, the Ionic being in Serlio's
words, 'for men of letters or those who lead a life of repose, being neither robust nor
soft'.
80
Jones's use of simplified or enlarged external ornaments was, in some instances, a

response to the problem of optical adjustment. The unusual Composite capitals on the
faqade of the Banqueting House in Whitehall were probably designed with distance
from the eye in mind (Fig. 14). The capitals are slightly taller than convention allows
and have large single acanthus leaves beneath the volutes instead of two tiers of leaves.81
Not surprisingly, the Composite cornice is Palladio's, and its 'fewe members' read very
clearly when seen from the ground, some 21.5 metres below. In 1633-34, when
designing a new west front for St Paul's Cathedral in London, Jones again tackled the
problem of proportioning a two-tiered classical faqade. His response on the unexecuted
preliminary design of the west front was to 'stretch' the proportions of the upper,
Composite order in each of its main parts: the columns have been increased from the
customary o1 modules to o'/2, the capitals from I /6 to I /3, and the entablature from 2
modules to 2I6. The deep square modillions in the cornice were clearly intended to
seem prominent from the ground.82
.. .....
f,C:.k
1619-22
.a .rt...
,-
r.
,?
I :W;
_II:'--1-
Fig. i4
7I
The BanquetingHouse,
itehall,
(refaced1829-b3). Detail of Composite
adjustments. An example of this
--'''tJ
Fig. is Preparatorydrawingby Henry

Flitcroffor an engravingof the westfront of
the 'great Model of ye Architrave
Whis
,
Iin
the
bild owever,
wor itelf,h
tha
Jot
esneaged
in
most ponged
exercis
meintpofporstioni
tby
hepl
of e
optc orrete kowf1rom
t
works
of all
accounts
that
he
external decohe that
lhad full-sized
itall, timber
h high-level
wFor
I4onts
Badnu
lseti
mbeHouses
o
f models
higIflPrep
extorderawngalbyHeco
rative
in situ so that
their effectthe
andomakeesffect
features
first ahof
could judge andengan
erected
ed si that
pe heoulfdo
of ne
firstin
and
rative(rect
necessary
freese
in September
the west
end which,
cornice'
for the portico of
free and
Isepo
andcortinVice',
fortheporticoof
the weustKend
whigns
in
Septembeigo
wns(Lon
1639, was
modified by an 'Addition' and re-erected with the 'Modell of the Pedestal & Raile and
show the balustrading set back as far as the centres of the pedestals.
The
wrong toover
Banister
the same according to Mr Surveyors designe'83
and balustrading
the
Theofsettingpedestals
of
out ofthe
the pedestals
e oe
fportico
theportico
Texrsetint
and basorretrding
aboeabove the
th entablature
nta
at St Paul's was of utmost significance to Jones because it represented his interpretation
of Vitruvius's obscure passage on the scamilli impares(III, iv, s). In a note on this subject
tin
h
cte cofr
t tfinitrJones
acct
sttep
ed
t th ead
at taokte
unecsar
of pedestals
on aplinth
but
frontof the
with the
its basement
dado
of the Barbaro
nd
pedestal, so that
(impares)
displacement
temple
podium,
thought
aligns
pedestal, was
both are plumb with the column shaft at its top. 85ones ,also observed that on Palladio's
correct solution was that shown on Pailadio's section of the unbuilt courtyard of the
Palazzo Iseppo de' Porti in Vicenza, where the balustrade is set back slightly from the
72
ARCHITECTURAL
HISTORY 35: 1992
reconstruction of the Piazza of the Greeks the basement of the pedestal aligned with one
of the mouldings beneath the corona of the cornice below.86 Henry Flitcroft's
preparatory drawing for Kent's engraved view of St Paul's west front (taken from a lost
Inigo Jones elevation) shows that Jones followed his approved examples, for the
pedestal dado aligns with the column shaft at its top and the pedestal basement is plumb
with the moulding beneath the uncut dentil course in the cornice. The balustrade would
appear to have the slight set-back that Jones recommended (Fig. 15).
When proportioning the statues on the pedestals of the St Paul's balustrade Jones
chose the largest of the ratios he had discovered in his analysis of statue heights in his
Quattro Libri, that of V4the height of the column and architrave. This confirms the
practical purpose behind this series of notes and suggests that scores of other annotations in Book IV of his Palladio, datable to the mid- or later I63os and concerned with
the proportions of individual classical members, belong to the same exploratory
exercise, which began with a comparison of published examples to arrive at acceptable
limits and ended at St Paul's withJones testing the effect of his chosen proportion from
the ground.
There was no contradiction in Inigo Jones's theory of design between the idea of
proportional harmony and the quest for a unified visual effect that was consistent with
the character and purpose of the design and overcame the problem of optical recession.
Proportion was itself a matter of visual correspondence, of parts that 'agree', 'answer',
or are 'even' with one another through shared dimensions or the alignment of wall
surfaces. Ratios may derive from precepts in Vitruvius or Palladio, or from an
empirical study of examples in the QuattroLibri and other reliable sources, but the final
choice depended on what Alberti termed 'that natural sense', innate in the spirit, which
allows us to detect eurhythmialeggiadria.'87
Jones's method of selecting proportions was no different from his approach to the
design of ornaments. The starting point for both was the imitation of the 'best of ye
ansientes', but in any situation 'the libberty of Composing wth reason is not Taken
awaye'.88Jones was convinced by Daniele Barbaro's argument that there were no hard
and fast rules in Vitruvius, only limits within which the judicious architect could vary
with reason, and he therefore castigated Scamozzi's pedantic insistence on rules and
formulae. Like the Greek architect Hermogenes, and the unknown sculptor of the
antique fragment in Lord Arundel's collection, Jones strove to invent new architectural
forms according to basic principles of classical design, and hoped to leave to posterity a
fount of excellence from which others would draw the secrets of the art of architecture.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am gratefulto Peter Draperfor encouragingme to producethis article,and to John Newman

for much invaluableadvice and comment, which includedcarefulcheckingof my transcriptions
of Jones's notes and help with some of Daniele Barbaro'smore obscure passages of Italian. I
would also like to thank John Peacock, Edward Chaney and Howard Burns for helpful
suggestions on a typescriptof this article.PeterDay at ChatsworthHouse andLesleyLe Claireat
WorcesterCollege, Oxford have been unfailinglygenerouswith theirtime. Others who assisted
73
include Tina Seeley, who did some of the typing, and John Thorneycroft. Last but not least I
should like to thank my wife, Suzanne, and family for their support and encouragement.
NOTES
I R. Wittkower, 'Inigo Jones, Architect and Man of Letters', RIBA Journal, LX (1953), pp. 83-90; repr. in
R. Wittkower, Palladio and English Palladianism (London, 1974), but without the discussion that followed
Wittkower's paper delivered at the RIBA on 9 December 1952; J. Summerson, InigoJones (Harmondsworth,
I966), pp. 71-74; G. Toplis, 'The sources ofJones's mind and imagination' inJ. Harris, S. Orgel and R. Strong
(eds), The King's Arcadia:InigoJones and the Stuart Court (London, 1973), pp. 61-63; A. A. Tait, 'Inigo Jones's
"Stone-Heng"' The BurlingtonMagazine, cxx (I978), pp. 154-59; R. Strong, BritanniaTriumphans.InigoJones,
Rubensand WhitehallPalace(London, I980), pp. 55-64; A. C. Fusco, InigoJonesVitruviusBritannicus:Jones
e Palladio
nella culturaarchitettonica
inglese,16oo-1740(Rimini, 1985);J. Bold, John Webb.ArchitecturalTheoryandPracticein the
SeventeenthCentury(Oxford, 1989), p. I4.
2 Wittkower, 'InigoJones', p. 88.
3 Ibid., and Summerson, InigoJones, p. 71.
4 Wittkower, 'Inigo Jones', p. 86, and C. Rowe, 'The theoretical drawings of Inigo Jones, their sources and
scope', London University MA thesis, 1947.
5 Wittkower, 'InigoJones', p.84.
6 Ibid., pp. 87-88.
7 Ibid., p. 90.
8 J. Newman, 'InigoJones's architecturaleducation before I614' in this volume.
9 For a further account of this aspect of Jones's architectural development see G. Higgott, 'The making of an
architect: InigoJones's second tour of Italy, 1613-14', inJ. Harris and G. Higgott, InigoJones:CompleteArchitectural
Drawings (London and New York, I989), pp. 52-57.
IO Notes in Jones's copy of A. Palladio, I QuattroLibri dell'Architettura(Venice, I60o) at Worcester College,
Oxford, Book I, p. I I. See facsimile edition published by B. Allsopp (ed.), InigoJonesonPalladio2 vols (Newcastle
upon Tyne, 1970), loc. cit. The note is dated 'I614/Baia/7 January', but was written on I7 january 1615 when
Jones was back in England and had reverted to the 'Old Style' Julian Calendar, in which the date of the new year
changed on 25 March.
I Jones's QuattroLibri, Ioth flyleaf verso ('5th flyleaf verso' in Allsopp, op. cit.).
12 The note, in Book IV, p.98, can be dated on its handwriting style to a period of one or two years afterJones
returned from Italy in I614. From this date onwards, Jones employed many of the italic letter forms he had used in
Italy, including the lower-case 'h' with its rearleg well above the front leg, but in the period from 1614 to c. i6i8 he
combined these with features that had been common in his writing in the period 1610-13, notably the upper-case
'B', 'C', 'P', 'R' and 'S' in the initial position and the lower-case secretary 'h'. By March 1619 (see below, note 67)
these upper-case initial letters were much less frequent, the 'C' and 'R' having vanished, and his script had become
more even and compact.
13 Jones's QuattroLibri,Book II, p. 12. See also Harris and Higgott, pp. 53-54, Figs 12 and 13.Jones had noted on
site, in the margin of Palladio's plate of the elevation of the Palazzo Thiene: 'Scamozo and Palmo Saith that thes
designes wear ofJulio Romano and executid by Palladio'. Not long after (probably when he was reviewing his
Italian notes in January and February 1615), he squeezed in at the end of this note the comment '& So yt Seemes',
suggesting that he now sided with the opinions of Scamozzi and Palma Giovane on its attribution to Giulio
Romano.
14 Inigo Jones's Roman Sketchbook, Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, fol. 77v.
15 Book I, p. 52. The note is written in the lower margin of the page, above another note referring to Genoa,
which is in an identical hand and is dated 'London 28 Jan: 1614' (Old Style, i.e. 1615 New Style).
I6 Roman Sketchbook, fols 76v and 76r respectively. The notes are dated 'Thursday ye I9 January 1614' and
'Friday ye 20January I614', but asJ. A. Gotch has shown (InigoJones, I928, pp. 72-73, 81) the days referred to
indicate that the year was 1615, when Jones was in London. See alsoJ. Peacock, 'Figurative Drawings', in Harris
and Higgott, InigoJones, pp. 285, 288-90.
17 A set of Tarquinio Ligustri's engravings, perhaps the set once owned by Jones, is in the Talman Album:
engravings, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
I8 This part ofJones's note is quoted in full in Harris and Higgott, pp. 55-56.
I9 Jones occasionally used 'i' in place of another vowel, as in the words Civered ('covered') and 'hild' ('held') in
two notes written on site at the Pantheon, Rome, in 1614, on page 8I in Book IV of his QuattroLibri.
20 See Vitruvius, The Ten BooksofArchitecture,
trans. M. H. Morgan (Harvard, 1914;repr. New York, I960), I, ii,
5-7, pp. I4-I6. For an account of the origin and significance ofVitruvius's theory of decorum seeJ. Onians, Bearers
of Meaning: The ClassicalOrdersin Antiquity, the MiddleAges, and the Renaissance(Princeton, I988), pp. 33-40.
74
ARCHITECTURAL
HISTORY 35:
I992
21 See Onians's invaluable discussion of Serlio's stylistic terminology in Bearersof Meaning, pp. 263-86.
22 Inigc Jones's annotated copy of Sebastiano Serlio, Architettura,Books I-IV and part of Book V, folio ed.
(Venice, 1560-62), Queens College, Oxford, IV, fol. I7r, see Newman, 'Inigo Jones's architecturaleducation',
above, p. 39.
23 Commentary on p. 35 of I Dieci Libri, '... Ma non si deve credere, che solamente habbiano ad essere tre
maniere di opere, perche Vitru. ne habbia tre sole numerata, percioche egli stesso nel quarto libro al settimo cap. vi
agguigne la Toscano, & dice anche che vi sono altre maniere, & i moderni ne fanno, & la ragione lo richiede, per
fare differenza da i nostri santi alli Dei falsi de gli antichi, & e in potere d'uno circonspetto & prudente Architetto de
componere con ragione di misure molte altre maniere, servando il Decoro, & non servendo a suoi capricci'. For
Jones's early notes in Vitruvius's Book I, chapter ii, see Newman, above pp. 27-28.
24 Jones's annotated copy ofLomazzo's Trattatois now in the collection of Mr Ben Weinreb. Study of the original
was possible through the good offices of Mr Sydney Sabin and Mr Weinreb. The Trattatohas been republished,
with a modern commentary, by R. P. Ciardi (ed.), Gian Paulo Lomazzo: scrittisulle arti, 2 vols (Florence, 1974).
25 Book VI, chapter 46. Ornamental forms in the headings of chapters 43-50 include terms listed by Jones in his
Roman Sketchbook note of 19 January I615 (e.g. 'trionfi', 'trofei', 'termini', 'vasi', 'quadrature').
26 Note on p. 410 ofJones's copy of the Trattato.This note and the following one are in a style of handwriting very
similar to that of dated notes of the 1614- 5 period in his QuattroLibri.
27 Ibid., p. 41I.
28 G. Vasari, Delle vite de' scultori,pittori, et architettori,
vol. I, part iii (Florence, 1568), p. 282 inJones's annotated
copy at Worcester College, Oxford.
29 This word, with a large upper-case 'S', is consistent in style with Jones's hand in the period c. 1613-18.
30 QuattroLibri, Book IV, p. Io6. The note can be dated to the mid- or late I63os by its position on the page and its
compact italic style of handwriting, which includes the lower-case italic 'e' (as in 'The', first word). This letter
form reappearsinJones's writing in dated examples from the mid-i63os onwards (e.g. in note dated I December
1636 in QuattroLibri, Book IV, p. 105).
31 This note probably dates to the early or mid-i63os. It is in a compact italic hand, but has no italic 'e'. The long
lower-case secretary 's' (in 'usiall') is a particular feature in dated notes of the early I630s.
32 QuattroLibri,Book IV, chapter ix, p. 30: 'La Cornice non ha il dentello incavato & e senza modiglioni: ma tra il
dentello, & il gocciolatoio ha un' Ovolo assai grande'. Jones translatedthis in about I6Io in the right-hand margin
of the plate on page 35: 'F In this Cornish ye Dentels ar not Carved and ther ar no Carthuses but
b[e]twene ye
De[n]tell and ye Corrona this great Ovolo'.
33 This note, in the bottom margin of page 14 in Book IV of his QuattroLibri,was written not long afterJuly 1633
(the date of the note which displaced it, immediately above in the left-hand margin). It is roughly contemporary
with two notes on pages 162 and 163 inJones's annotated copy of Barbaro'sVitruvius at Chatsworth. In the second
of these Jones writes, 'see my dessigne of the Antike freese wth gorgons heedes Ar: Ho: [Arundel House] whear
thear are cartotzi with leaves in the frees as ye triglifies arrein ye dorrike'. Webb's drawing (Fig. 2) may be a
copy of
Jones's 'dessigne'. The fragment was unearthed on the site of Arundel House in 1972 and is now in the Museum of
London; see J. Harris, 'The link between a Roman second-century sculptor, Van Dyck, Inigo Jones and Queen
Henrietta Maria', The BurlingtonMagazine, cxv (August, 1973) pp. 526-30.
34 The notes are on pages 14 ('The Cimatio of the Architrave is exterordinari and gratious'), 47 and 60.
35 Note in right-hand margin of Book I, p. 50, datable to the later I630S.
36 Jones's folio edition of Serlio, Queen's College, Oxford, Book III, fol. 55r. The note dates c. I614-I8.
37 Note of c. 1619-30 in Book II, chapter xvii, p. 76, in Jones's QuattroLibri. See Webb's thumbnail sketch of
Jones's Newmarket entablature in Harris and Higgott, InigoJones, p. I02, Fig. 33.
38 Vitruvius, Ten Books (ed. Morgan), I, ii, 8-9, p. I6. Jones was familiar with Vitruvius's principle of
distribution from an early date. See Newman above, p. 29.
39 Jones's Vitruvius, p. I3I. See Ten Books (ed. Morgan), III, ii, 9, pp. 82-84.
40 Ibid., V, i, 4-10, pp. 132-36.
41 Onians, in Bearersof Meaning,p. 34, repeats a common misconception that Vitruvius's system of proportion is
based entirely on the application of the module when he writes, 'Throughout, column spacing, column
height,
base height, capital height, and the divisions of the entablatureare given in terms of column diameters, the module
by which all parts of the building can be measured'.
42 Ten Books (ed. Morgan), IV, viii, 2-3, pp. 123-24.
43 Ibid., III, v, 2-3, II, pp. 90, 94-96.
44 Ibid., III, v, 8-9, pp. 93-94. Jones carefully annotated this passage in his edition of Vitruvius, c. I6o8-Io. See
Newman, above, pp. 3 -32.
45 I Dieci Libri, p. 133, 'Credo io, che questo stia in discretione, & destrezza, piu presto, che in arte o regola ...
Sono bene i termini delle cose, secondo il piu, & il meno, ma tra que termini, ove sia, chi
voglia procedere con
ragione, non ha perduto il modo di fermarsi piu in uno, che in altro luogo, quando la occasione gli da di farlo.' For
the relevant passage in Vitruvius, see Morgan (ed.), III, iii, II-3, pp. 84-86.
75
46 Ethics, ii, vi-ix. SeeJ. A. K. Thomson, H. Tredennick andJ. Barnes (eds), Artistotle,Ethics(Harmondsworth,
1976), pp. Ioo-io. Barbaro was a distinguished Aristotelian scholar who edited translations by his great uncle,
Ermolao Barbaro, of Aristotle's Rhetoric(1544) and NicomacheanEthics (1544). See R. Wittkower, Architectural
Principlesin the Age of Humanism(London, 1962), pp. 66-69, where the influence of Aristotle on Barbaro's I Dieci
Libri is briefly discussed.
47 I Dieci Libri, p. 15: 'per6 dico io, che mescolando con ragione nelle fabriche le proportioni d'una maniera, o
componendole, o levandole, ne puo risultare una bella forma di mezo'.
48 Ibid., p. 164: '. .. perche ritrovando, che se delle colonne altre fussero piu alte sei parte, altre dieci del piede loro,
per lo innato sentimento, col quale potemo guidicare, che tanta grossezza, overo tanta sottigliezza non ha del
buono, commincio a fare l'ufficio suo, & discorre, che cose fusse di mezo tra questi eccessi, che potesse piacere, & di
subito si diede alla inventione della proportioni...'. See Leon Battista Alberti, 'On theArt ofBuildingin Ten Books,
trans. J. Rykwert, N. Leach and R. Tavenor (London, 1988), Book IX, chapter 7, p. 309.
49 Ibid., p. 165: 'Io ho detto di sopra con l'auttorita di Vitru. che la ragione delle cose e in se vera, & durabile, onde
con la proportione sene vive, & sta senza oppositione, ma non sempre diletta quel sentimento dell' animo nostro,
ilquale forse piu a dentro per ascosa forza di natura penetrando non consente a gli occhi, che la pura e semplice
proportione alcuna fiata diletti ... Et nella Musica finalmente ci sono alcuni suoni, i quali vengono alle orecchie con
dolcezza, che per6 non sono tra le consonanze collocati. per6 dico, che ognuno deve cessare dalla meraviglia,
quando ritrova in molte opere la misura alquanto variata da i precetti, perche egli e a bastanza tra'l maggiore, &
minore eccesso contenersi, variando i mezi con guidicio, & sottigliezza d'avvertimento. & per6 da gli spacii, & vani
tra le colonne Vitru. ha regolato l'altezza di quelle, ne mai e uscito de i termini.'
50 Ibid., p. 136. The note is an extension of Barbaro's comment, 'Pone adunque Vitru. i termini del piu, & de
meno'.
5I Jones's annotated copy of Vignola's Regola ... Libroprimo et originale(Rome, 1607) at Worcester College,
Oxford, P1.xxxii (detail of cornice and rusticated corner).
52 See Oxford English Dictionary, rank, A(adj.), II, 6.c. 'High or excessive in amount': I602. SHAKS.
Ham.iv.iv.22. 'Nor will it yield ... A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee'.
53 Notes in the first series of notes occur mostly against illustrations of Palladio's buildings in Book II, and are
identified by the spellings 'heyght' and hygh' and frequent initial upper-case letters; e.g. Jones's note in Book II,
p. io: 'thes Statues ar hyh [sic] with thear Plinth ye 6 Part of ye Pillor Eune [even] wth the Cornish of ye
Bastard order'. Notes in the second series are mostly found against Palladio's illustrations of Roman buildings
in Book IV and are in Jones's compact italic hand of the I63os, with the spellings 'hight' and 'high'; e.g.
Book IV, p. 96 (Temple of Castor and Pollux, Naples): 'thes statues ar in hight 1/4 part of ye collome &
architrave'.
54 Notes in Book IV, pp. 53 (Temple of Vesta in Rome), 66 (Bramante's Tempietto), 92 (Temple of Vesta at
Tivoli: 'this bacement and copolo is half the hight of the collumbes & arrchitra[v]e freese and corronish'); cf.
Vitruvius, IV, viii, 1-3.
55 Book IV, pp. I9, 25, 33, 45, 13 ; cf. Vitruvius, IV, vii, 4: 'Upon the columns lay the main beams, fastened
together, to a height commensurate with the requirements of the size of the building.'
56 Book IV, pp. I4, 2I, 45 ('1obsearve that thes fondati are in breadth as much as this Abbacco of the capitals'), 54,
133 (no specific source in Vitruvius). His notes on coffering are amongst the latest he wrote in his QuattroLibrias
they are always displaced to the tops and bottoms of margins, or within the illustrations, and have frequent italic
'e's They were presumably written whenJones was designing the coffering for the portico on the west front of St
Paul's Cathedral in the late I63os.
57 Book IV, pp. 28, 29, 35 (Temple of Antoninus and Faustina:'this great ovolo is as broade shell and all as it is
high'), 72, 8o, 83, 97, 132; cf. Vitruvius, III, v, Ii. The notes date to the later I63os and must have been written
when Jones was proportioning the cornice on the portico at St Paul's Cathedral, which had a 'great ovolo' instead
of modillions, after the cornice on the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina in Rome (see Fig. 15).
58 Notes on p. 40, most of which appear to have been written at the time of the inscription, 'greenwich ye 3 of
May I637'.
59 I Dieci Libri, p. 282 '& per6 ben dice Vitru. che se bene la maggior cura, che ha l'Architetto, sia d'intorno le
misure, & proportioni, pero grande acquisto fa di valore, quando egli e forzato partirsidalle proposte simmitrie, &
niente lieva alla bellezza dello aspetto'. Jones's note is datable to the I63os.
60 QuattroLibri, Book I, p. 50, note in left-hand margin, datable mid-I62os to early I63os: 'Scamzo Li 6 fo 20
taxeth Palladio for this cornish wrongfully for having fewe members under ye modigliones not knowyng that ye
modigliones & 2 faccie stod far from ye eye'.
61 Note, c. I608-io, translating Barbaro's comment on p. 27, 'per6 bisogna che nell'opera sia una certa qualita,
che contenti, & diletti gli occhi de' riguardanti, & questa e detta da Vitru. Eurithmia'. See Newman, above, p. 28.
62 Notes on p. 257 of Jones's copy of Architetturadi Leon BattistaAlberti tradottain Lingua Fiorentinada Cosimo
Bartoli (Monreale, i565) at Worcester College, Oxford. Jones probably acquired his Alberti in Italy in I6I3-I4.
Most of the notes in Book IX appear to have been written in the period c. I614-I9, and include, on p. 263, the
76
ARCHITECTURAL
HISTORY 35: 1992
entry, 'i6 fabri. 61 5' (Old Style, i.e. I616 New Style). Alberti's leggiadriais concinnitasin the original Latin edition.
See Alberti, On the Art of Building[above n. 48], pp. 30I-03, 421-22.
63 QuattroLibri, Book I, chapter xxi. The sentence was translated by Jones, c. I608-Io. See Newman, above,
p. 24.
64 Harris and Higgott, InigoJones, cat. no. I3, p. 66.

65 Jones would not have calculated the proportion mathematically, but used his dividers. He may also have
thought of the diagonal proportion as just less than a square and a half (20:30), for he wrote next to Palladio's
illustration of this room shape: 'Scamozio Taxeth Palldio for yousing ye diagonal figure as being so neear a squar
and a half'.
66 J. Orrell, The Theatresof InigoJonesandJohn Webb(Cambridge, 1985), pp. 24-27, 113-48.
67 Notes marked'C', 'E','F' and'G' dated I March I618 (Old Style, i.e I619 New Style) on p. 39, Book II, and all
but the uppermost note in the left-hand margin of p. 40. For the classical sources ofJones's Banqueting House
interior, see Per Palme, The Triumphof Peace (London and Uppsala, 1956), p. 176 ff.
68 Harris and Higgott, InigoJones, cat. no. 82, pp. 251-53.
69 Examples include two designs for gates at Oatlands, I617, the Arundel House gate, I618, and gates for New
Hall, Essex, 1623. See Harris and Higgott, cat. nos 17, i8, 19, 40, 42, 43.
70 Ibid., cat. no. 3, p. 38. The only other facade design which reveals an exactsequence of squares is the elevation
for a seven window house, c. I638 (Ibid., cat. no. 87, pp. 260-61), which is 74 x 37 ft wall edge to wall edge and
from the ground to under the main cornice. Jones's contemporary design for a choir screen at Winchester
Cathedral (Ibid., cat. no. 8 , pp. 248-50) is approximately a double square, measured by the outermost vertical
and horizontal scorelines (44 X 22 ft 8 in. on the scale).
71 Ibid., cat. nos 33, 34 and 30; pp. 110-13, 103-05.
72 Ibid., p. I05 and Fig. 35. The overall length ofJones's unscaled elevation, measuring across the ground-floor
plinth, is 261 mm and the height from the ground to the top of the cornice is I32 mm. Neither dimension,
however, is marked by scorelines on the drawing. Scamozzi's elevation of the Palazzo Trissino, in l'Idea della
ArchitetturaUniversale(Venice, I6I5), I, p. 260, measures 48 X 24 units to the top of the cornice (each unit is 2
Vicentine feet) on the proportional grid in the illustration.
73 Five triglyphs and five metopes require I2'/2 modules. If the piers had been 3 ft wide, the column centres would
have been 9 ft (i.e. Io8 in.) apart, and I2l2 X 82/3in. = Io08/3 in.
74 The columns are 9 ft 3/2 in. apart on the scale, which is I25/6modules, i.e. '/3 module in excess of 2'/2.
75 The I:5 ratio between the height and width of the pediment triangle (measuring by the outer lines of the corona
mouldings) compares with the 2:9 proportion recommended by Scamozzi (L'Idea, II, p. 42). See also Harris and
Higgott, pp. 128-3 I. The cornice is i7/ 2 modules high (I ft 2 in. on the scale). This compares with Palladio's I /6
modules and Vignola's I/2.
76 The frieze panel may have been a device to avoid the problem of applying triglyphs and metopes to the whole
frieze, since Webb's arch width of 5 ft did not give him a convenient modular spacing between the column centres
(7 ft II in. = Io7/2 modules approximately).
77 See also Harris and Higgott, p. 131 and, for a fuller analysis ofJones's use of proportion and detail on Doric
gateway designs, G. Higgott, 'The Architectural Drawings of Inigo Jones: Attribution, Dating and Analysis',
University of London PhD Diss., 1987, pp. I63-93.
78 For Serlio's rustic Tuscan order see Onians, Bearersof Meaning, pp. 272-73, andJ. Ackerman, 'The Tuscan/
Rustic Order: A Study in the Metaphorical Language of Architecture', Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians, XLII (I983), pp. 25-34.
79 Harris and Higgott, cat. no. 77, pp. 236-37.

80 Serlio, Architettura(Venice, I560-62), Book IV, fol. 36v (no notes on this page in Jones's annotated copy at
Queen's College, Oxford). For the translation of Serlio's text see Onians, Bearersof Meaning, p. 273. Jones
probably copied his Ionic base from Serlio's large illustration on fol. 37.
81 The capitals are 2 ft 9'/2 in. (860 mm) high and the diameter of the column shaft at its base is 2 ft 3 in. (686 mm).
Thus the capitals are approximately I s modules high instead of the customary I /6 modules. See London County
Council, Survey of London,vol. xIII, The Parish of St Margaret, Westminster (Part II) (I930), PI. 25.
82 Harris and Higgott, cat. no. 78, pp. 24I-43.
83 St Paul's Cathedral Works Accounts, Guildhall Library, London, MS25, 473: W.A.II, p. 7I. See also J.
Summerson, 'Lecture on a master mind: InigoJones', Proceedingsof the BritishAcademy,L (1965), pp. I90-91, and
Harris and Higgott, p. 239.
84 I Dieci Libri, p. 139 (notes datable to early I630s): 'Barbaro makes the raill over the ballesters to rettorne to the
midell of the pedistall. / I am of opinion that the raill shuld stand just with the architrave wch is as much as ye
deminishing of the pillor at the topp so as you have beesides ye deminishinge of the pillor, all the proiecture of the
base. but this must bee tried'. For a detailed discussion of Jones's notes on the scamilli imparesproblem see
J. Newman, 'Italian treatises in use: the significance of InigoJones's annotations' inJ. Guillame (ed.), Les Traites
d'Architecture
de la Renaissance(Paris, I988), pp. 438-39.
77
85 Jones's QuattroLibri, Book II, p. Io: 'The setting out ye pedistall on the cornish ye saill of the base to bee equall
wth the diminishing of the pillor above sheauth the way of ye scamilli impares...'.
86 Ibid., Book III, p. 34. See Newman, 'Italian treatises', loc. cit.
87 See above, note 48.
88 Jones's understanding of the classical concept of imitation (mimesis)is fully discussed byJohn Peacock in 'Inigo
Jones and Renaissance art', RenaissanceStudies, vol. 4, no. 3 (I990), pp. 245-72.

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'Varying with Reason': Inigo Jones's Theory of Design

HISTORY 35: 1992

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

should correspondin plan and elevation. The lack of correspondencebetween internal

HISTORY 35: I992

Fig. I A. Palladio, I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura (Venice, 16o0). InigoJones's

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 35: 1992

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

appliedin modern circumstancesand variedin their detailsaccordingto their purpose.

ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 35: 1992

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

from Asia Minor

heads for metopes an entablaturees

HISTORY 35: 1992

Fig. 3 InigoJones'sQuattro Libri, Book I, p. 50

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

Economy, or distribution (distributio),was one of Vitruvius's fundamental principles

Fig.. 4 D. Barbaro, I Dieci Libri

HISTORY 35: 1992

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

HISTORY 35: 1992

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

HISTORY 35: 1992

centralize il,c ~7(rts

centralizedvilla, c. 1617 (British

and the double square (20 X 40 ft loggia).

the cube of the hall at the

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

Fig. 8 InigoJones, BeaufortHousegateway design.

HISTORY 35: 1992

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

Fig. 9 John Webb,designfor a Doricgateway,

The Beaufort House gateway, 1621,

in thegroundsof ChiswickHouse, Hounslow.

Fig. ii InigoJones, design

HISTORY 35: 1992

Engravingof the chapel

Fig. 13 InigoJones, desigl

Designs of Inigo Jones and

Abbey, 1625, detail

others, c. 1731, detail (British

Jones's use of simplified or enlarged external ornaments was, in some instances, a

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

adjustments. An example of this

Fig. is Preparatorydrawingby Henry

the 'great Model of ye Architrave

HISTORY 35: 1992

I am gratefulto Peter Draperfor encouragingme to producethis article,and to John Newman

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

HISTORY 35: 1992

64 Harris and Higgott, InigoJones, cat. no. I3, p. 66.

Historians, XLII (I983), pp. 25-34.

79 Harris and Higgott, cat. no. 77, pp. 236-37.

INIGO JONES'S THEORY OF DESIGN

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