Note to the Reader

Weber, Susan

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Note to the Reader

Susan Weber (Editor)

William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain

Note to the Reader

Author

Susan Weber (Editor)

PublisherBard Graduate Center

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-20583

Note to the Reader

In working with texts and documents of earlier eras, it is necessary to make certain decisions regarding style. Since William Kent’s time, for example, the English language itself has changed. It was then conventional in the written language to use “ye” rather than “the” and certain abbreviations such as “Do” meaning “ditto.” In this book, where we have quoted from archival documents and period publications, these and other original spellings have been retained, as have older conventions of punctuation. In addition, Kent was at best a chaotic speller, and we have left his wild misspellings uncorrected. We have rarely noted these with “sic” except where it seemed necessary to reassure the reader that we have not introduced a typographical or grammatical error.

In Kent’s time, the calendar was undergoing a change, as England abandoned the Julian calendar (introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC) in favor of the Gregorian calendar that we use today (introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in AD 1582). The main differences between the two relate to the handling of leap year days and the start of the year (the Julian year began on March 25 rather than January 1). Although the Gregorian calendar was quickly adopted by most of Catholic Europe, in England it did not become official until 1752, four years after Kent’s death. Despite this, both calendars were used together, especially in the years leading up to 1752. In this book, we have translated dates to the Gregorian calendar, only occasionally for clarity noting “n.s.” (new style, meaning Gregorian) or “o.s.” (old style, meaning Julian). In some places, it is virtually impossible to tell which calendar was used, and we have cited both o.s. and n.s. dates.

The dates given in the Chronology are based on a thorough review of current documentation and the authors’ best efforts to interpret their findings. The dates cover the full span of Kent’s works for a client or a project, even when a project was completed or designs implemented after Kent’s death. In essays authors may cite specific aspects of a given project and variances may arise in the dating.

Scholars occasionally use different terms to mean the same thing. We have used “Anglo-Palladian” consistently, rather than “neo-Palladian,” when referring to the eighteenth-century architectural movement in which Andrea Palladio’s principles of architecture were adapted to English country houses, public buildings, and churches. However, we have not standardized the use of “Gothic/Gothick,” as doing so would have presented considerable problems of definition. The term “Gothick” largely signifies the pseudo-archaic Gothic Revival style that originated in England in the eighteenth century and merged authentic Gothic elements with classical motifs, chinoiserie, and other idioms. Kent was one of its earliest practitioners.

Several eighteenth-century sources and publications are cited frequently throughout this book, and many of these are available in a multitude of editions and reprints. For the reader’s convenience, we have standardized some of these to a preferred edition. Primary among these is Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England; with some Account of the principal artists and incidental notes on other Arts; collected by the late Mr. George Vertue; and now digested and published from his original MSS. By Mr. Horace Walpole. To which is added The History of The Modern Taste in Gardening, 2nd edition with additions, vol. 4 (London: J. Dodsley, 1782). This edition has the advantage of including various amendments and providing the complete text of Walpole’s essay “History of the Modern Taste in Gardening,” which is often cited herein and is also available on the Internet. Of great importance to Kent scholars is the correspondence between Kent and Burrell Massingberd (see, e.g., chap. 3). The original documents are in the County Archives, Lincolnshire, but we have consistently cited from the published source: Carol Blackett-Ord, “Letters from William Kent to Burrell Massingberd from the Continent,” Walpole Society Annual, vol. 63 (2001).

Furnishings within historic homes are often moved from one location to another and occasionally put into storage. When specified in the text herein, locations of objects designed by William Kent and others are as of 2010, when much of the primary research for this publication was completed. In the captions, inscriptions are included, in whole or part, for Kent drawings that are not included in the exhibition; those on exhibition items will be found in the checklist. Inscriptions on works by other designers are not given. In the endnotes, bibliography, and checklist, when online sources are cited, the access date is as of 2013, the date of publication of this volume.

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