Evelyn's Diary. 19 Nov 1644. The relics showed and kept in this church are without number, as are also the precious vessels of gold, silver, and gems, with the vests and services to be seen in the Sacristy, which they showed us. Under the high altar is an ample grot inlaid with pietra-commessa, wherein half of the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul are preserved; before hang divers great lamps of the richest plate, burning continually. About this and contiguous to the altar, runs a balustrade, in form of a theater, of black marble. Toward the left, as you go out of the church by the portico, a little beneath the high altar, is an old brass statue of St. Peter sitting, under the soles of whose feet many devout persons rub their heads, and touch their chaplets. This was formerly cast from a statue of Jupiter Capitolinus. In another place, stands a column grated about with iron, whereon they report that our Blessed Savior was often wont to lean as he preached in the Temple. In the work of the reliquary under the cupola there are eight wreathed columns brought from the Temple of Solomon. In another chapel, they showed us the chair of St. Peter, or, as they name it, the Apostolical Throne. But among all the chapels the one most glorious has for an altar-piece a Madonna bearing a dead Christ on her knees, in white marble, the work of Michael Angelo. At the upper end of the Cathedral, are several stately monuments, especially that of Urban VIII. Round the cupola, and in many other places in the church, are confession seats, for all languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, French, English, Irish, Welsh, Sclavonian, Dutch, etc., as it is written on their friezes in golden capitals, and there are still at confessions some of all nations. Toward the lower end of the church, and on the side of a vast pillar sustaining a weighty roof, is the depositum and statue of the Countess Matilda, a rare piece, with basso-relievos about it of white marble, the work of Bernini. Here are also those of Sextus IV. and Paulus III., etc. Among the exquisite pieces in this sumptuous fabric is that of the ship with St. Peter held up from sinking by our Savior; the emblems about it are the Mosaic of the famous Giotto, who restored and made it perfect after it had been defaced by the Barbarians. Nor is the pavement under the cupola to be passed over without observation, which with the rest of the body and walls of the whole church, are all inlaid with the richest of pietra-commessa, in the most splendid colors of polished marbles, agates, serpentine, porphyry, calcedon, etc., wholly incrusted to the very roof. Coming out by the portico at which we entered, we were shown the Porta Santa, never opened but at the year of jubilee. This glorious foundation hath belonging to it thirty canons, thirty-six beneficiates, twenty-eight clerks beneficed, with innumerable chaplains, etc., a Cardinal being always archpriest; the present Cardinal was Francisco Barberini, who also styled himself Protector of the English, to whom he was indeed very courteous.

Pepy's Diary. 08 Oct 1667. At last, rose, and up, and broke our fast, and then took coach, and away, and at Newport [Map] did call on Mr. Lowther (age 26), and he and his friend, and the master of the house, their friend, where they were, a gentleman, did presently get a-horseback and overtook us, and went with us to Audley-End [Map], and did go along with us all over the house and garden: and mighty merry we were. The house indeed do appear very fine, but not so fine as it hath heretofore to me; particularly the ceilings are not so good as I always took them to be, being nothing so well wrought as my Chancellor's (age 58) are; and though the figure of the house without be very extraordinary good, yet the stayre-case is exceeding poor; and a great many pictures, and not one good one in the house but one of Harry the Eighth, done by Holben; and not one good suit of hangings in all the house, but all most ancient things, such as I would not give the hanging-up of in my house; and the other furniture, beds and other things, accordingly¹. Only the gallery is good, and, above all things, the cellars, where we went down and drank of much good liquor; and indeed the cellars are fine: and here my wife and I did sing to my great content.

Note 1. Mr. George T. Robinson, F.S.A., in a paper on "Decorative Plaster Work", read before the Society of Arts in April, 1891, refers to the ceilings at Audley End as presenting an excellent idea of the state of the stuccoer's art in the middle of James I's reign, and adds, "Few houses in England can show so fine a series of the same date ... The great hall has medallions in the square portions of the ceiling formed by its dividing timber beams. The large saloon on the principal floor-a room about 66 feet long by 30 feet wide-has a very remarkable ceiling of the pendentive type, which presents many peculiarities, the most notable of which, that these not only depend from the ceiling, but the outside ones spring from the walls in a natural and structural manner. This is a most unusual circumstance in the stucco work of the time, the reason for the omission of this reasonable treatment evidently being the unwillingness of the stuccoer to omit his elaborate frieze in which he took such delight" ("Journal Soc. of Arts", vol. xxxix., p. 449).

In 1710. John James Baker. Known as "Whig Junto". From www.tate.org ... This is a portrait of a political group named the Whig Junto and a Black servant, whose identity is unknown. It is the only known portrait of the Junto, which was an ideologically close-knit group of political peers who formed the leadership of the Whig party in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The members of the group are shown gathered together on a grand terrace, while a vista onto a garden is revealed by the Black servant, who holds back a heavy velvet curtain. The grand architectural setting is imagined, and is deliberately evocative of power and status. The picture was commissioned by Edward Russell, 1st Earl of Orford (age 57), who stands on the right, as if welcoming the company. It is not known if Orford (age 57) had a Black servant in his household or whether the individual was included to emphasise Orford's (age 57) wealth and social standing. At the time, Britain was profiting heavily from the trade of enslaved people from West Africa. The presence of Black servants, many of whom were enslaved, in both aristocratic and merchant households had come to symbolise property and wealth. This reflected the dehumanising view of enslaved Black people held by the British elite.

The scene conjures one of the Junto's country house meetings where, in between parliamentary sessions, policy and party strategy were formulated. From left to right the sitters round the table can be identified as Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland (age 34); Thomas Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton (age 61); John Somers, 1st Baron Somers (1C 1697) (age 58); Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax (age 48); and William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire (age 38). The lavish surroundings probably represent Orford's (age 57) house, Chippenham, where Junto meetings sometimes took place. It was also ideally located for the nearby Newmarket horse races, which the members of the Junto frequently attended when parliament was not sitting.

The portrait is dated 1710, before the crushing electoral defeat of the Whigs in October of that year. It shows the political allies while in power, when Sunderland (age 34) was Secretary of State, Wharton (age 61) Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Somers Lord President of the Privy Council, Devonshire (age 38) Lord Steward and a member of the Privy Council, and Orford (age 57) First Lord of the Admiralty. On the surface the portrait shows a relaxed gathering of fellow connoisseurs, seated round a table consulting antique medals and books of prints. Fittingly, Somers and Halifax (age 48) sit at the centre of the company, holding a book and handling a medal respectively. Both were known collectors and antiquarians - Somers was one of the founders of the Whig Kit-Cat Club, a convivial drinking and dining club, but which also had a political propagandist agenda; he had also purchased the Resta collection of drawings from Italy in 1709. Halifax (age 48) had a celebrated library and a collection of antique medals (sold in 1740), to which those being consulted presumably allude. Behind this exterior of cultural appreciation, however, the portrait advertises Whig policy in 1709-10, which supported the continuation of war against France in opposition to Tory calls for peace. The two visible prints are friezes from Trajan's column showing episodes from the Dacian wars, with the Roman army crossing the Danube. The viewer is invited to make parallels between the valour and victories of the Roman emperors and the current military greatness achieved for Britain by the Duke of Marlborough's campaigns. The globe, showing the Pacific, presumably alludes to Whig foreign policy ambitions beyond Europe. By defeating France in Europe, they aimed to gain commercial access to Spanish American trade routes. It reflects the competitive European colonial pursuit of new markets, including the selling of enslaved West African people to Spanish territories overseas.

John James Baker (or Backer, or Bakker) is thought to have been Flemish, from Antwerp. He was Godfrey Kneller's (age 63) (1646-1723) long-time studio assistant and drapery painter, and this is his largest, most ambitious and complex work. The symbolic programme was presumably devised by Orford in discussion with Baker. The Duke of Devonshire was not a regular member of the Junto, although an increasingly important Whig peer, but his inclusion here is presumably because of his kinship relationship with Orford. The picture is thus a demonstration of Orford's private as well as professional networks, and also his pride and ambition. It would have been displayed at Chippenham in the newly appointed, fashionable interiors, alongside other works that Orford commissioned to advertise his public achievement and the private and professional networks that sustained his power and influence.