Power and Virtue

"This book presents English architectural developments in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as they were intertwined with larger intellectual concerns of power (empiricism and experimental knowledge) and virtue (humanism and the virtuoso pursuits)." "Power and Virtue: Architecture and intellectual change in England 1660-1730 examines the intellectual life since the Restoration and its connection with architectural production. This in turn creates an important context for an understanding of the rise of humanistic scholarship. English architecture is placed in this context through the works and patronage of, among others, Shaftesbury, Lord Somers, James Stanhope and the Molesworths. Their ideas and practice provided a crucial cultural condition for Burlington's introduction of Palladian architecture in England."--Jacket.