Claim: Heythrop Park is designed in the Baroque style and influenced by Domenico de' Rossi, an Italian sculptor and engraver in the early 1700s.
Evidence: It was designed by the architect Thomas Archer in the Baroque style for Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury. Domenico de' Rossi (1659–1730) was an Italian sculptor and engraver. The travelling duke was quickly won over: in Rome, Shrewsbury visited the villa of Domenico de' Rossi in 1702, to "lay aside some prints" by the architectural engraver of the Studio di architettura civile di Roma, full of designs by Borromini and Bernini. On his return to England, apparently possessing at least Rossi's first volume (of 1702), Shrewsbury called upon Archer to create a modern Italian palazzo set in the Oxfordshire countryside. At this time, Archer was one of the few English architects to have studied in Italy and become conversant with the Baroque forms of architecture, but many of the details of Heythrop were adapted from Roman precedents through engravings in Rossi's publication, though none was directly imitated.