The essays in this volume demonstrate how unpredictable attitudes to classical art turn out to be in Britain during this period. They show how, from town halls to catafalques, British artists, patrons, and builders made informed choices from the classical vocabulary, while working within systems and circumstances quite distinct from those of classicism.

They also disclose visual sensibilities, in architecture as in painting, that were extinguished and forgotten as classicism came to be regarded as the desirable norm. The visual world of Albion (an ancient name for the islands of Great Britain, now used poetically of Britain) that has been lost is here evoked and the contribution of Inigo Jones in particular is clarified.