Somerset House The Palaces of England's Queens

摘要

Sometime around 1970 when I was intending to write about architectural libraries, I visited Hill Hall, Essex, built by that passionate and intellectual builder Sir Thomas Smith. In 1976 John Norman King sent me an offprint of his article 'Protector Somerset, Patron of the English Renaissance', from Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, where he rightly credited Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of England, with a creative passion for architecture. The grand Strand frontage of his named palace from its beginning in 1547 to its demise by demolition in 1776 was omnipresent. This is made clear in Simon Thurley's excellent new book.