Garden History – Renaissance Europe

The Renaissance garden continued to evolve, and began to spread across Europe. Books about Italian gardens were published, prompting Northern Europeans to visit Italian gardens and bring home new ideas. Monarchs and the wealthy embraced the new style of gardening, and often employed Italian gardeners. Through this exchange, the Italian Renaissance garden spread from Italy into the rest of Europe, especially France, England, and the Low Countries (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg).

The Renaissance garden continued to evolve under the influence of the Baroque period (from about 1600 until 1750). For gardens, Baroque characteristics included:

• Manipulation of space using curved forms, forced perspective, and optical illusions
• Monumental scale in landscaping, and grand treatment of elevation using fountains and stairways
• Axial organization, such as axes that radiated outward from a central focal point or a long axis that ran from the formal garden to a distant focal point through wild, forested regions
• Spatial elements, such as straight avenues of trees (allees)

Palace Het Loo, in Apeldoorn, Holland – photo by JE at UWO (2002).

 

The Renaissance garden also evolved culturally. Christopher Thacker (The History of Gardens) observes that medieval gardens continued as they were in Europe (foursquare enclosures, regularly divided with raised beds, and tunnels and arbors made of trellis work), but were combined with the exuberance, enjoyment, and extravagant display of the Renaissance garden. Penelope Hobhouse notes in The Story of Gardening that the Italian principles had to be adapted to the local topography, climate, and architecture. The resulting European Renaissance gardens were a hybrid of Italian style and ideas, and local conditions and practicality.