Stamford - St Martin - monument to John Cecil, 5th earl of Exeter (d. 1700) and his wife 2015-02-18

The monument is by Pierre-Étienne Monnot, a French sculptor working in Rome. Although it carries the date 1704, the inscription [of which there is a translation in Samuel Sharp's A handbook of Burghley, Northamptonshire (1851), p.17n] says that the earl commissioned it during his lifetime: "when he was in Italy, whilst he thoroughly examined and as curiously collected the works of choicest art, there he caused this monument to be made, where it could be most exquisitely done". "Being well instructed in polite letters, he went abroad more than once and, from the most refined parts of Europe, brought home much knowledge of antiquities, languages and civil affairs"; his wife, Anne, daughter of William Cavendish, earl of Devonshire, was "the companion of his virtues and travels, and, in a manner, of his studies" - hence, presumably, the book that she holds, as well as the books beneath the cushion on which the earl rests. The flanking figures represent victory and art.