The fullest English treatise of the Palladian years: materials and construction, the orders, the planning of town and country houses, and the finishing of rooms, their ceilings, chimneypieces and decoration, written by a builder-architect of Burlington’s circle who disliked the French taste for scrolls and shells and held to the compartmented ceilings and architectural chimneypieces of Inigo Jones.
Isaac Ware (1704–1766) held posts in the King’s Office of Works from the late 1720s and belonged to Lord Burlington’s circle. He published the Designs of Inigo Jones and Others, made the English translation of Palladio’s Four Books in 1738, and designed Chesterfield House in London (1747–52).
The Complete Body, issued in parts from 1755 and as a folio in 1756, was meant for owners as well as builders. Its chapters on the finishing of rooms give their ceilings, cornices and chimneypieces in proportion to the room, and condemn the Rococo ceilings and chimneypieces then coming in from France.