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John Webb’s Reconstruction of the Ancient House
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 July 2016
Extract
Despite periodic attempts to reassess John Webb’s role in the development of seventeenth-century English architecture, he has remained something of an enigma. Born in London in 1611 of a Somerset family, Webb was educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School in the City. In 1628 he was taken as a pupil into the office of Inigo Jones. By that date Jones had been Surveyor of the King’s Works for well over a decade and, with his design for the Banqueting House, Whitehall, had introduced a revolutionary style of architecture into England. Jones’s earlier travels in Italy, his study of antiquities and of the architecture of Andrea Palladio had made him the first true Renaissance architect in this country, and his reputation was such that soon after his death he was credited with many buildings designed by others. Webb and his work were overshadowed by the legend of Jones. Drawings in Webb’s hand were already in the 1680s assumed to be by Jones, and Kent’s Designs of Inigo Jones (1727) consists mainly of engravings derived from drawings by Webb. More recently, while Webb’s draughtsmanship has been recognized, it has often been assumed that he was transcribing ideas of Jones’s.
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- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1985
References
Notes
1 J. A. Gotch identified Webb’s drawing style and handwriting and returned the attribution of many drawings from Jones to Webb. See for example ‘Catalogue of drawings attributed to Inigo Jones preserved at Worcester College, Oxford, and at Chatsworth’, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, XX (1913), 349–57. Margaret Whinney’s important article, ‘John Webb’s Drawings for Whitehall Palace’, The Walpole Society, xxxi (1942–43), 45–107, referred back to Gotch’s scholarship in reconsidering the authorship of Webb’s designs which had long been considered the work of Jones.
2 The source for the date of Webb’s appearance withjones is Venue Note Books, i, 53 (The Walpole Society).
3 As early as 1682 John Aubrey commented that ‘John Oliver, the City Surveyor, hath all Jones’s plans and designs…(including)… his designs of all Whitehall’ (BriefLives (1895 edition), ed. Clarke, 11, 10), even though all the drawings for Whitehall are in Webb’s hand. Despite the work of Gotch and Whinney (see n. 1), Colin Rowe’s MA Thesis, ‘The Theoretical Drawings of Inigo Jones: Their Sources and Scope’ (University of London, 1947; unpublished) treated Webb’s drawings as if they recorded Jones’s design. Similar errors of attribution appear to have been made subsequently, see, for example, Rudolf Wittkower, ‘Inigo Jones, Architect and Man of Letters’, RIBA Journal, LX, January 1953.
4 The major collections of Webb’s drawings are at Worcester College, Oxford, Chatsworth and the RIBA, London.
5 See Harris, John and Tait, A. A., Catalogue of the drawings by Inigo Jones, John Webb & Isaac de Caus at Worcester College Oxford (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar, nos 141, 142, 143 A-B, 144, 169 A-c, 234A-C, 235, 236 A-c, 237 A-c, 238, 239 A-B. Not only do the drawings form a coherent group in subject matter but they also share the same style of draughtsmanship, the same shading convention and handwriting and they all appear on the same type of paper. Some plans and elevations have been split but were originally on a single sheet, as they still are in some cases. The Catalogue suggests the sources for Webb’s drawings in each case but does not transcribe Webb’s notes (see Appendix to this article).
6 See, for example, Giorgio Martini, Francesco de, Trattato de architettura civile e militare (manuscript c. 1482; 1967 facsimile), 1, 69 Google Scholar ff. describes ancient houses and his own designs (fol. 20 tav. 199) are based on them. Antonio da Sangallo the Younger’s Palazzo Farnese, Rome (begun 1534), was intended as a reconstruction of an ancient house; and Palladio’s own palace designs (e.g. Palazzo Thiene — I Quattro Libri, 11, 13) as well as the Convent of the Carità were influenced by the description of the ancient house in De Architectura. A woodcut of Palazzo Farnese is bound in at the back of Webb’s annotated copy of Serlio’s treatise (RIBA, London).
7 Vitruvius: The ten books on architecture translated by Morris Hicky Morgan (1914; Dover edition, 1960) has been used throughout for reference.
8 Jones had acquired I Quattro Libri (1601 edition) in 1601 (inscribed date) and annotated it over the years. Many annotations in this and in Daniele Barbaro’s edition of Vitruvius’ treatise (1567 edition, at Chatsworth) are in Jones’s early handwriting of c. 1609. Jones acquired Scamozzi’s L’Idea in 1617 (inscribed date) and made notes in it at least by 1625 (Part 1, 235: date). At his death, Jones’s library and his drawings passed to Webb. Jones’s copies of I Quattro Libri and L’Idea are at Worcester College, Oxford.
9 Scamozzi states (Part 1, 236) that there is little difference between the half and the diagonal of the square, i.e. between the proportions 2:3 and 
which would seem to be a mathematical slip — is very nearly 1:1.4 which is 3:4.2, and 3:4 is in fact the proportion substituted by Scamozzi for Vitruvius’s 1:
10 In several ways the drawings of the Corinthian atrium epitomize Webb’s use of his sources. He comparted the plan according to Scamozzi’s ‘space’ grid, aligning the walls far more rigorously than those of the Barbaro plan; he used Scamozzi’s 3:4 proportion for the atrium. He referred to Vitruvius’ text for the width of the alae and for the width of the tablinum. He used Palladio’s I Quattro Libri as a pattern book: the single giant order with a storey above may have had its origin in Palladio’s Carità — both have a diameter of 3 ft 6 in — the alignment of windows with the tops of capitals is reminiscent of the courtyard elevation of the Palazzo Iseppo Porto (n, 10).
11 Seen. 3 above.
12 Inigo Jones’s key to his amended annotations on Scamozzi’s plan of the House of the Principal Greeks. L’ Idea, Part 1, 229:
Notes to left of plan: H Ciseceno [O Bagnie] P Scalo Maistro | L Portico in fronte | K essedra | h Noat that above this store or ba(n)io may be an open court to give light the staires.
Notes to right of plan: Q Picnotheca | N Oicei quadro per use di verno | M Oico o Triclinio Igittico 11 Habitatione | H Bibliotheca | G Entrata | F Vestobilo | E Stanza | D Scala: Principale | e Stanzi Duplicati per famiglia | B Usciota | A Portici intorno la casa dai Huomini | r stanzi | q corticelli | p Oico grandi | o Entrorso | n stanzetti per servi | m Thalamo 11 Amphithalami | k Parrastas 11 scallo principali | h bagni | g stanzi | f triclinio e salla di Arrmo | e cordile con portice de tree latti | d tre stanzi grandi | e stanzi di portinari | b stallo di cavalli scielti | a entrata non molto largo Inigo Jones’s key to his amended annotations on Scamozzi’s plan of the House of the Roman Senators. L’Idea, Parti, 235:
Notes to left of plan: m Testrina | 28 Septē 1625 | Scamozzo makes ye Atrio and alle of a diagonall figure and takes ye alle out of that: but Da: Barbaro and Palladio make ye Atrio by itself I mean that of a diagonall figure and the alle by themselves this last I take to bee nearer the text of Vitruvius
Notes to right of plan: o Comodita | N Banie j M Transiti | L Cortilotti | s Stansi et Scale secriti | R Bibliotheca | Q Entrata… | p Vestibulo 11 Giardini | K Triclinie | H Logo scoperto | G Tran(s)ito [F Scallo nobille | E Picnotheche | D Triclinie di magare…je Basillica | A Portici | B Perristillio [q Triclinio | p Scalo principale | o stanze duplicati per servizi | n Tablino 11 triclini quadra | k Plumarrio | j Stanze all uso delle done | h Thalamo | g Cavediio | f andito | e atrio Corintho | d Porta da Serarro | c Stanzi di Respetto per li Donne | b stanzi per servi | a logia Intorna | T Cinque stanzi larghi con scale secreti per (padre) di famillia.
13 See n. 12 above.
14 On Palladio’s section (11, 39) Jones had noted that ‘this roomeisas much in hight as ye breadth from the ground to ye topp of ye corona’. On comparing the width with the height he found these were not equal and marked the point ‘H’, amending his note to this effect. Webb’s notes in his copy of I Quattro Libri (11, 39) record conclusions similar to Jones’s: ‘The height … is from ye pavement to ye topp of ye Cornice as much as the bredth of ye Roome … or where the work is very great, there it may bee made vaulted, wch vault shalbe in height 1/3 part of ye breadth of ye Roome …’.
15 Compare especially Harris and Tait, op. cit., no. 19: superimposed diagonal and horizontal parallel hatching to indicate window and doorway voids and diagonal parallel hatching to suggest the round form of columns. There is some confusion in assessing any chronological development of style in Webb’s drawings since some may have been copies of earlier ones — see e.g. Harris and Tait, op. cit., nos I, 4, 23, 24. (These drawings are in a similar style to those of the ancient house, and have the same watermark or countermark as drawings for Somerset House (Harris and Tait nos 18, 19) of 1638.) Drawings for Durham House (1649), the Royal College of Physicians (1651–53), Greenwich and Whitehall Palace projects of the 1660s are shaded with wash as a general rule.
16 In the RIBA, London. Webb inscribed his address (with an italic T) and the date’Jan:16:1643’ (1644 new style) at the beginning of Book 7 which deals with domestic architecture. At the end he comments: ‘loggia with a frontispice the wch Palladio so much affected … may be the ancients did not us them but in Temples & Publique works unless it be that wch Vitruvius calls vestibulum’. And on p. 177 of Book 4, against Serlio’s discussion of facade design, Webb wrote: ‘from here Scamozzi hath taken his way of comparting of buildings by spaces’. A facsimile edition of Webb’s Serlio exists (Gregg, 1964) but with many of his notes obliterated.
17 Colin Rowe (see n. 3 above) considered these drawing as part of a treatise intended byjones to emulate I Quattro Libri.
18 A comparison of the sections, especially the tablina, shows that Webb’s drawing is close to Scamozzi’s Roman house (Pl. 9).
19 On a plan for Durham House Webb notes: ‘The outward walls in ye lower story are 4 fo: in ye second 3 fo: ½ The division walls below are 2 fo: ½ above 2fo’. (Harris and Tait, op. cit., no. 84r).
20 See, for example, The Book of Architecture of John Thorpe (ed. Sir John Summerson, The Walpole Society, XL (1966). Thorpe’s plans are consistent in showing doors off the central axes of rooms. Sir Henry Wotton’s Elements of Architecture (1626) decries Italian practices that are unsuitable for the English climate (e.g. p. 72).
21 Harris and Tait, op. cit., no. 193. This is not as closely derived from a treatise source, e.g. Palladio’s basilica, I Quattro Libri, III, 42–43, as are Webb’s drawings of the ancient house. This drawing suggests that Webb was building up some kind of’office thesaurus’ (Harris and Tait, op. cit., p. 61).
22 See, for example, the drawing for Whitehall Palace dated 1661 in the Chatsworth collection (no. 48); and drawings for Durham House, Harris and Tait, op. cit., nos 83, 84v, 87; and 81 which shows a facade designed in similar fashion to that of the Corinthian atrium (Pl. 5) with giant order and regular window bays marking ‘spaces’. The Durham House site obliged Webb to abandon a deep plan with a single peristyle. An early Whitehall plan (Chatsworth no. 71) shows the incorporation of a central peristyle as well as elements such as the colonnaded atrium and Four Column hall.