Serious Gothic and 'doing the Ancient Buildings': Batty Langley's Ancient Architecture and 'Principal Geometric Elevations'

摘要

Despite Langley's serious treatment of medieval architecture, he almost immediately became a figurehead for unarchaeological and whimsical Gothic. Walpole kindled this reputation in the decade following Ancient Architecture's publication.98 After initially deriding Langley's 'bastard Gothic' in a letter of 1755 to Richard Bentley (bap. 1708, d. 1782), one of the designers on Walpole's Strawberry Committee, Walpole then critiqued Langley in print.