Jones Inigo

Jones, Inigo, "the English Palladio," the son of a clothworker, was born in London in 1572. Nothing is known as to his youth, except that he went to Italy, possibly through the generosity of the Earl of Pembroke or the Earl of Arundel, to study art. He' came back with some reputation, and in 1604 was invited by the King of Denmark to Copenhagen, where he designed the Rosenborg and Frederiksborg palaces. He thus secured the patronage of Anne of Denmark and Prince Henry, by whom he was employed in providing scenery for masques, in which capacity he fell foul of Ben Jonson, who treated him with utter contempt. In 1612 James I. appointed him surveyor-general of royal buildings, and commissioned him to rebuild the palace at Whitehall. The banqueting-house was the only part that he completed, and it is the best of his works, among which may be reckoned St. Paul's, Covent Garden, the Queen's House, Greenwich Park, the Piazza, Covent Garden, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and the remarkable Corinthian, portico of St. Paul's, besides numberless country mansions. He'continued to hold his offices under Charles I., and was heavily fined by the Commonwealth as a malignant. In poverty and sorrow he struggled on for two years after the king's execution, dying in 1651.