Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694 - 1753). Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, was an Anglo-Irish architect and noble often called the Apollo of the Arts and the Architect Earl. The son of the 2nd Earl of Burlington and 3rd Earl of Cork, Burlington never took more than a passing interest in politics despite his position as a Privy Counsellor and a member of both the British House of Lords and the Irish House of Lords. Lord Burlington is remembered for bringing Palladian architecture to Britain and Ireland. His major projects include Burlington House, Westminster School, Chiswick House and Northwick Park. Lord Burlington was born in Yorkshire into a wealthy Anglo-Irish aristocratic family as the only son of Charles Boyle, 2nd Earl of Burlington and his wife, Juliana Noel. Often known as the Architect Earl, Burlington was instrumental in the revival of Palladian architecture in both Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland. He succeeded to his titles and extensive estates in Yorkshire and Ireland at the age of nine, after his father's death in February 1704. During his minority, which lasted until 1715, his English and Irish lands and political interests were managed on his behalf by his mother and guardian, the Dowager Countess Juliana. He showed an early love of music. Georg Frideric Handel dedicated two operas to him while staying at his residence Burlington House: Teseo and Amadigi di Gaula. According to Hawkins, Francesco Barsanti dedicated the six recorder sonatas of his Op. 1 to Lord Burlington, although the dedication must have appeared on the edition sold by Peter Bressan, before Walsh & Hare engraved the works c. 1727. Three foreign Grand Tours taken between 1714 and 1719, and a further trip to Paris in 1726, gave him opportunities to develop his taste. His professional skill as an architect was extraordinary in an English aristocrat. He carried his copy of Andrea Palladio's book I quattro libri dell'architettura with him when touring the Veneto in 1719, but made notes on a number of blank pages, having found the region flooded and many villas inaccessible. It was on this tour that he acquired the passion for Palladian architecture. In 1719, he was one of the main subscribers of the Royal Academy of Music, a corporation that produced baroque opera on stage. Lord Burlington's first project, appropriately, was one of his own London residences, Burlington House, where he dismissed his baroque architect James Gibbs when he returned from the continent in 1719, and employed the Scottish architect Colen Campbell, with the history-painter-turned-designer William Kent assigned for the interiors. The courtyard front of Burlington House, prominently sited in Piccadilly, was the first major executed statement of Neo-Palladianism. In the 1720s, Burlington and Campbell parted, and Burlington was assisted in his projects by the young Henry Flitcroft, who developed into a major architect of the second Neo-Palladian generation, Daniel Garrett, a straightforward Palladian architect of the second rank, and some draughtsmen. Lord Burlington never closely inspected Roman ruins or made detailed drawings on the sites; he relied on Palladio and Scamozzi as his interpreters of the classic tradition to do so. Burlington's Palladio drawings include many reconstructions of Vitruvius' Roman buildings, which he planned to publish. In the meantime, he adapted the palazzo facade in the illustration for the London house of General Wade at Old Burlington Street in 1723, which was published for Vitruvius Britannicus iii. This publication put a previously unknown Palladio design into circulation. Another source of his inspiration were drawings he collected, some drawings of Palladio himself which had belonged to Inigo Jones, and many more of Inigo Jones' pupil John Webb, which William Kent published in 1727 as Some Designs of Mr Inigo Jones. with some additional designs that were by Kent and Burlington. The important role of Jones' pupil Webb in transmitting the palladian-neo-palladian heritage was not understood until the 20th century. By the early 1730s, Palladian style had triumphed as the generally accepted manner for a British country house or public building. For the rest of his life, Lord Burlington was the Apollo of the arts as Horace Walpole phrased it, and Kent, his proper priest. In 1739, Lord Burlington was involved in the founding of a new charitable organisation called the Foundling Hospital. Burlington was a governor of the charity, but did not formally take part in planning the construction of this large Bloomsbury children's home, completed in 1742. The architect for the building was a Theodore Jacobsen, who took on the commission as an act of charity.