Exterior view

Lord Burlington created the most complex example of Palladian architecture. Chiswick House, built between 1723 and 1729, is close to the villas of the Veneto in Italy. The ground plan, a square containing a central octagon, recalls Palladio’s Villa Rotonda. A suite of interconnecting geometric spaces surround the domed central hall; they extend into apses with statues in the niches.

The exterior combines multiple references to antiquity. The six Corinthian columns of the portico are from the temple of Jupiter Stator in Rome, the semi-circular, subdivided windows of the drum are reminiscent of Roman thermal baths. These features do not represent a literal quotation from ancient buildings but rather a version of the sixteenth-century interpretations which were accessible to Burlington through Palladio’s drawings and buildings.