Wilton House and the art of floating meadows

Title
Wilton House and the art of floating meadows
Publication Date
2015
Author(s)
Noble, Louise
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7094-6833
Email: lnoble2@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:lnoble2
Editor
Editor(s): Matthew Dimmock, Andrew Hadfield, Margaret Healy
Type of document
Book Chapter
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Manchester University Press
Place of publication
Manchester, United Kingdom
Edition
1
UNE publication id
une:19419
Abstract
"I propose to raise a golden world (for commonwealth) in the Golden Vale in Herefordshire," writes Rowland Vaughan in his dedication to a distant cousin, William Herbert, the Third Earl of Pembroke. The dedication, which appears in his 1610 treatise, 'Most Approved and Long Experienced Water-workes', is an appeal to Pembroke for financial support for Vaughan's vision to create an ideal Commonwealth on his Welsh estate (see Figure 14.1). Central to Vaughan's bold plan is the establishment of sophisticated irrigation technology in the form of floated water meadows. The general scholarly consensus is that William, and his brother Philip, paid little heed to Vaughan's work. However, Vaughan's treatise suggests a meeting of minds with his cousins and the renowned intellectual culture of Wilton House. The organic utopian vision and scientific empiricism expressed in 'Water-workes' resonate deeply with the intellectual preoccupations of the Wilton Circle: a group of thinkers and writers championed by Pembroke's mother, Mary Sidney, and later by Pembroke himself, and which included in its melange his close friend, Francis Bacon.
Link
Citation
The intellectual culture of the English country house, 1500-1700, p. 232-247
ISBN
9780719090202
Start page
232
End page
247

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