Villalpando's sacred architecture in the light of Isaac Newton's commentary

The second volume of Ezechielem Explanationes by Juan Battista Villalpando, published in 1604, contains a re-creation of the Temple of Solomon illustrated by a portfolio of exceptionally detailed architectural drawings. His designs were built on the principles of Platonic musical harmonies and his interpretation of ancient measurements. Villalpando envisaged the temple as a building encapsulating the entire formal grammar of classical architecture. Villalpando's architecture, harmonic proportions and measurements appear to be a flawless system and his design exerted an extraordinary influence on the architects and historians of architecture in Europe for at least the next two centuries. His reconstruction inspired not only other commentaries and other reconstructions of Solomon's Temple, but it also stimulated discussion on the very origins of architecture. However, his reconstruction was not without its critics. In the seventeenth and eighteen centuries critics included Louis Cappel, Samuel Lee, Louis Compiègne de Veil, Nicolaus Goldmann and others who produced alternative reconstructions of Solomon's Temple. In the twentieth century criticism from what appears to be an unusual source was uncovered. In Sir Isaac Newton's unpublished manuscripts he claimed that although Villalpando had created the best of the reconstructions of the Temple of Solomon, the reconstruction had many problems.