Architectural taste and the Grand Tour : George Berkeley's evolving canon

Abstract

In 1715, in his introduction to the first edition of Vitruvius Britannicus, Colen Campbell lamented that: The general Esteem that Travelers have for Things that are foreign, is in nothing more conspicuous than with Regards to Buildings. We travel, for the most part at an Age more apt to be imposed upon by the Ignorance or Partiality of others, than to judge truly of the Merit of Things by the Strength of Reason. It's owing to the Mistake in Education, that so many of the British Quality have so mean an opinion of what is performed in our own Country: tho' perhaps in most we equal, and in some Things we surpass, our Neighbours. Though the latter argument - if intended to refer to architecture or indeed the visual arts in general - was only just becoming plausible, patriotic (not to say paranoid) Protestants had been articulating something similar since the first signs of a thaw with the Catholic continent at the end of the sixteenth century.