Discoveries: conversation pieces

"In fact, human imagination may be the most powerful instrument of discovery, allowing us to question the ideas of others, no matter how illustrious and famous they may be."

Liba Taub, Director, Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Cambridge

"All objects in museums acquire significance by talking to the company they keep."

Robin  Osborne, Director, Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge

Discoveries: Art, Science and Exploration.  
Exhibition catalogue © Two Temple Place 2014

'A pleasant academical retreat...'

"Wednesday 6 April.   ... We then walked into the City, and then strolled about the Temple, which is a most agreeable place.   You quit all the hurry and bustle of the City in Fleet Street and the Strand, and all at once find yourself in a pleasant academical retreat.  You see good convenient buildings, handsome walks, you view the silver  Thames.  You are shaded by venerable trees.  Crows are cawing above your head.  Here and there you see a solitary bencher sauntering about.  This description I take from the Reverend Dr. Blair, who is now come to town.  To select all these circumstances shows a fine imagination."

Boswell's London Journal 1762-3  James Boswell

Every wise man

"For as outwardly every wise man carries himself gravely in public places ... yet inwardly has imagination and fire which sometimes flies out unrestrained, just as nature sometimes flies out to delight or amuse us (...laughter, contemplation or even horror...) -- So in Architecture the outward ornament is to be solid, proportionable according to rule, masculine and unaffected."

Inigo Jones

'Imaginacy"

"Architecture [is] like a wyse man,  [that] carrieth a gravitie in public places [yet] inwardly hath his imaginacy set on fire."

Inigo Jones