The Hadlow College Blog

In advance of a student field trip to the gardens of Florence, Italy to look at the Renaissance gardens, Stephen Harmer explains some of the influences over this period and the reasons why these gardens are considered special.

The Roman armies of occupation gave up their conquered lands which included the far Northern Province of England and returned to protect Rome, but by 500AD the Roman Empire in the West had fallen to the barbarians. The gardens of pleasure created by the Romans in England, France, Spain, and Germany and of course Italy fell into disrepair and for around the next thousand years Europe fell into the dark ages. Hobhouse describes the situation that ensued, ‘Following the fall of the Roman Empire, with much of Europe returning to the wilderness of the Dark Ages, there must have been little, if any, chance to practice gardening for beauty alone. Survival in a brutal age precluded aesthetic considerations, and the concept of creating a garden for enjoyment was lost’. .

The gardens of Italy in the medieval period and all over Europe, were behind walls, so were entire villages and towns. They needed the protection of these walls, a necessary protection from not only invaders but neighbouring communities.   Protective walls had the effect of stifling design and expansion of gardens as they were obviously restricting. As well as this, castles, villages and towns on mountainsides or hilltops would not have water in abundance for garden use.

Then in the 15^th Century in Italy a movement started that changed the concept of garden design in Europe, the renaissance, the re-birth of European gardens. This re-birth was set in motion by a number of factors including an increase in trade, which meant the sailors supplying this trade were bringing new ideas into Italy from countries such as Spain, and speaking of the magnificent Islamic gardens that they had seen. There was also an increased interest in the classical past of Rome, Constantinople and Greece and the idea to restore Italy to glorious times and re-new interest in art, classical learning and of course gardens.

Turner has described the catalyst of the re-birth as thus, ‘Signs of progress were abundant: trade had revived and new ideas were reaching Italy from all directions. Merchant sailors told of Spain’s Islamic gardens. Christian scholars, fleeing Constantinople as the Turkish conquerors drew nigh, carried knowledge of ancient and classical civilizations. In Italy, they found a culture already interested in its origins’.

This design concept started in Florence by the ‘Medici’ family who created country villas with gardens as a means to entertain society and to display their garden art and importantly their power. Gardens were no longer hidden away in monasteries and worked on by Monks but designed on mathematical lines and used for pleasure and entertainment. Hobhouse says on this subject, ‘The garden became a place for ‘outdoor living’, for social pleasures and philosophical debate’.

The natural world was no longer the demon, the woods and forests were no longer to be feared and gardens for the first time in centuries looked outwards and moved outwards into the countryside. Nature in fact was no longer to be feared but controlled and managed and the garden designers delighted in nature. House and garden were as one and linked together, unity with the landscape was sought and the plan of the orchard, trees in blocks or rows or the ‘quincunxial’ layout which mirrored the agricultural land outside the gardens was used to make the unity complete. The design of the renaissance garden in Italy was new and wonderful but it had its roots firmly in agriculture.

This renaissance, the cultural transformation that took place was called ‘Rinascimento’ in Italy and ‘Renaissance’ in France. It lead to a renewed interest in the classical arts of ancient Rome and ancient Greece and renewed the interest in, and use of sculpture and statues in the garden. The surviving gardens of Roman antiquity were plundered for their remaining sculpture and statues, such as at Hadrian’s Villa garden in Tivoli, many works of art were transported to new renaissance gardens. Hadrian’s villa (Villa Adriana) was used as the blue print for the renaissance. The renaissance architects believed that God had created the earth on mathematical lines and they advocated that buildings and gardens should also be constructed in the same way. They believed that studying and measuring the ancient ruins and gardens of Rome, such as at Villa Adriana (Hadrian’s Villa), would give them the answers to classical proportion and the answers to classical construction, construction that had survived a thousand years of neglect remarkably intact.

The renaissance aspired to return to the ideal of classical Rome and to take inspiration from its gardens, art and architecture. The renaissance gardens in the hills around Tivoli took as their inspiration the once glorious and magnificent garden of the Emperor Hadrian.

The way in which the ancient Romans were able to move and control water into and around a garden was studied in detail. The Roman engineers were masters of water hydraulics creating effects that would be hard to copy today. The Italians have always been highly skilled in this art and created water effects all over Europe.

The Italian renaissance period had various stages of evolution and started in the 14th century and ended in the 18th century. The ‘Early Renaissance’ can be said to have started around 1300 and lasted to 1480. The transition to ‘High Renaissance’ came about from 1480 to 1520, and then came another transition to ‘Mannerism’ from 1520 to 1580.  Lastly the ‘Baroque’ period of renaissance was almost unnoticeable in its transition from ‘mannerism’ and came about from 1580 to 1750.  As the renaissance period of gardening in Italy progressed it became grand and then with the last ‘baroque ‘period, extremely ornate.

If you are interested in studying Garden Design or Garden History, Hadlow College runs a number of part-time evening and weekend courses.  Visit the College website for more details or to request a prospectus.