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"Knowing the old, you well understand the new." This motto is inscribed on a bust of the 18th century antiquarian Charles Townley, for whom the house at 14 Queen Anne's Gate, formerly 7 Park Street, was built to display his collection of antiquities. In this impressive house of classical design, described by a contemporary German newspaper as the most magnificent private museum in the whole of Europe, visitors would find a collection of Roman sculpture unrivalled outside Italy, as well as non-western art, a library and a collection devoted to understanding the "universal generative spirit" worshipped by early civilisations. Townley was keenly interested in the esoteric and the occult. This book follows No 14 from its conception, construction and alterations through to our own time. St James's Park, now at the heart of the British establishment, was originally Henry VIII's deer park and later became the home of eccentrics and radicals. Charles Townley was a marginal character, Catholic and bisexual, educated at Douai, who preferred to converse in Italian or French and lived a libertine and rakish life. Catholics were prohibited from holding public office, and the author associates Townley's love of Bacchic mystery cults with the fact that like Catholicism they operated outside mainstream religion. As a veteran of the Grand Tour, Townley had bought a Piranesi engraving from Piranesi himself, and true to tradition he shipped back home large crates of marbles. The paintings he acquired included "A Group of Connoisseurs" by Richard Conway, depicting himself and his friends admiring the Townley Venus. Townley was predominantly gay at a time when it could be a capital offence, though he may also have had an illegitimate child, but his expertise gave him entrée to the highest circles. By the late 1780s he was the most trusted authority on classical antiquity in Britain, advising the future George IV on the decoration of Carlton House. Other works of art included the Townley Discobolus, a bust of Agrippina, later designated Isis, priapic works acquired from Cardinal Albani, and Poussin's "Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem". 128pp, colour reproductions.
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