The Stage Designs of Inigo Jones

This lavishly illustrated book is a full-length study of Inigo Jones as a stage-designer. Jones's designs for the Stuart court masques (and associated court entertainments) between 1605 and 1640 played a crucial role in transmitting the visual language of the Italian Renaissance tradition into English culture, where, because of geographical and historical factors, it had not yet become acclimatized. John Peacock shows that almost all of Jones's designs were copied and adapted from Italian and continental sources (many identified here for the first time), and argues that this is to be understood in terms of 'imitation', a concept and a practice central to the very tradition of which Jones is a messenger and propagandist. His exploration adds an alternative dimension to our knowledge and understanding of a figure who is generally considered the most important English artist of the seventeenth century.