Son of a clothmaker, Inigo Jones was baptised at St Bartholomew-the-Less, Smithfield, London on 19 July 1573. With an interest in the arts he left London c.1598 to travel through France and Germany to Italy where he spent 5 years. During this first journey, and a subsequent tour of Italy with the Earl of Arundel in 1613-14, Jones was to hone this interest and encounter a wide range of architecture from Roman antiquity to Andrea Palladio (1508-80) and Vicenzo Scamozzi (1552-1616), who Jones met. Having received no formal training his travels are seen to have been of great importance in his education as an architect.

In 1615 he took up the Surveyorship of the King's Works, continuously employed until the English Civil War (1642-48). This was not his first connection with the Royal Court. From 1605 he had been responsible for staging masques and plays often in collaboration with the poet Ben Jonson (1572?-1637).

Credited with bringing classicism to England and inspiring the Palladian revival of Lord Burlington (1694-1753) and William Kent (1685-1748) in the early 18th century, Jones has been referred to as the British Vitruvius (Marcus Vitruvius Pollio fl.46-30BC ancient Roman architect and theorist - the rediscovery, during the Renaissance, of his treatise on architecture in ten books, De architectura, fuelled the revival of classicism in that and subsequent periods). His best known buildings are the Queen's House, Greenwich , London (1616-18 & 1630-35) and the Banqueting House, Whitehall , London (1619-22).

Having survived capture by Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) leading figure in the parliamentarian New Model Army in the Civil War, later becoming Lord Protector of England) in 1645 he died unmarried on 21 June 1652 and is buried with his parents at St Benet's, Paul's Wharf, London. A substantial part of his fortune went to John Webb (1611-72), his son-in-law and personal assistant since 1628. Webb also inherited Jones's drawings, including a collection of at least 250 by Palladio that Jones had acquired in Italy. In spite of instructions that they were not to be dispersed the collection was split. Some have passed by way of Dr George Clarke to Worcester College, Oxford, others passed through various hands to Lord Burlington or were lost. Burlington's collection became part of the Devonshire family's and in 1894 the 8th Duke gave the architectural drawings to the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) but retained the masque designs. The RIBA Library also holds photographs of Jones's buildings.