Giacomo Leoni - Legacy

Legacy

Leoni was not the first to import Palladian Architecture to England; that accolade belongs firmly to Inigo Jones, who had designed the Palladian Queen's House at Greenwich in 1616 and the more ornate Banqueting House in Whitehall in 1619. Nor was he the only architect practising the concept during the Palladianism. William Kent designed Holkham Hall in 1734 in the Palladian manner; Thomas Archer was also a contemporary, although his work tended toward the baroque style that had been popular in England prior to the Palladian revival. Palladian architecture was able to flourish in England though, as it was suited to the great country houses being built or re-modelled; because unlike the French, the British aristocracy placed primary importance on their country estates.

For all his work and fame, Leoni did not achieve great financial benefit. It is recorded that in 1734, Lord Fitzwalter of Moulsham gave him £25 to ease his "being in distress.". Later, as Leoni lay dying in 1746, Lord Fitzwalter sent him a further £8 "par charité" He is known to have had a wife, Mary, and two sons, one of whom is "thought" to have been a clerk to the great exponent of Palladianism Matthew Brettingham.

Leoni did not only design grand mansions. His lesser designs included an octagonal garden temple at Cliveden for Lord Orkney, in 1735; an elegant arch in purest Palladian tradition, at Stowe, for the Marquis of Buckingham; and a Portland stone bridge at Stone Court, Carshalton. Leoni is thought to have designed a new church when working for the 8th Lord Petre at Thorndon Hall, Essex. The original church had been swept away to make room for the new mansion he was designing there.

Today, it is difficult to assess Leoni's works as much has been destroyed. Amongst his country houses, Moulsham, built in 1728, was pulled down in 1816; Bodecton Park, completed in 1738 was razed in 1826 and Lathom, completed circa 1740, was lost like so many other English country houses in the 20th century. By the early 20th century, the style of Palladianism which Leoni's books and works did so much to promote, was so quintessentially English that the fact that it was regarded as purely Italian at the time of its inception was largely forgotten. So indigenous to England does it seem, that in 1913—a time of huge pride in all things British—Sir Aston Webb's new principal facade at Buckingham Palace strongly resembled Leoni's 'Italian palazzo.'

Giacomo Leoni died in 1746 and was buried in St Pancras old churchyard, Middlesex. By the time of his death, Palladianism had been taken up by a whole new generation of British architects working in the classical forms, and was to remain in fashion until it was replaced by the Neoclassical interpretations of such architects as Robert Adam.

His final intended publication, which would have added to an evaluation of his work "Treatise of Architecture and ye Art of Building Publick and Private Edifices—Containing Several Noblemen's Houses & Country Seats’ was to have been a book of his own designs and interpretations. It remained uncompleted at the time of his death.