The Moorish garden in Spain generally consisted of several courtyards, known as patios, with water as the connecting link. Many patios contained a long canal with a zemral fountain and there were tiled walls and floors.
During the sixteenth century the initiative passed to Rome, where the architect Bramante designed a papal garden within the Vatican. This was the forerunner of the High Renaissance style, with a magnificent arrangement of steps and terraces, which became a prototype for everything which followed. From then on gardens became even more ostentatious in design, with terraces at different levels retained by walls and interconnected by grand staircases. Water again became a major feature, as it was in Islamic gardens. It was pressurized and used spectacularly, progressing down an incline or displayed in an elaborate fountain. While these Renaissance gardens were still places for cool retreat, with shade and water of great importance, they were also showplaces where the site and its vegetation were deliberately manipulated. The Italians were really the first to make decorative use of plants, with hedges, for example, used to link the house and garden structurally. The Renaissance movement originating in Italy spread northwards, together with increased knowledge about plants and their cultivation. In France the small formal gardens within the walls of mowed chateaux moved outside, becoming much grander in scope.
Unlike the Italian hillside gardens, the French ones were flat and straight, most of them situated in the fiat marshy areas to the south and west of Paris. The style was still very geometric, as the original pattern of formal beds within a grid system of paths was simply repeated in order to enlarge the garden.
The Romans put into practice what the Greeks wrote but the Roman garden was brought into the centre of the house, becoming an even more important part Of domestic life. We know of the ground pattern of early Roman town houses from excavations at Pompeii and villas elsewhere, and of their garden design from the letters of Pliny the younger.
The English term 'knot garden' refers to the style of flower beds which now evolved. They were small, usually raised, and laid Out in geometric patterns, edged with dwarf clipped shrubs such as box or thrift or with a herb like rosemary.
The Romans carried vegetable growing much further in their country homes because it was the main form of sustenance for rich and poor alike. Salad crops were grown and cabbage was said to be the favourite vegetable. Cato also wrote of turnips, beans, garlic, asparagus and radishes and later writers added carrots, onions, peas, lettuce, chicory, parsley, fennel, parsnips and melons. When the Romans went as conquerors to Europe, they introduced various plants, vegetables and fruit to different countries, together with their knowledge of agriculture and horticulture. - 15266
During the sixteenth century the initiative passed to Rome, where the architect Bramante designed a papal garden within the Vatican. This was the forerunner of the High Renaissance style, with a magnificent arrangement of steps and terraces, which became a prototype for everything which followed. From then on gardens became even more ostentatious in design, with terraces at different levels retained by walls and interconnected by grand staircases. Water again became a major feature, as it was in Islamic gardens. It was pressurized and used spectacularly, progressing down an incline or displayed in an elaborate fountain. While these Renaissance gardens were still places for cool retreat, with shade and water of great importance, they were also showplaces where the site and its vegetation were deliberately manipulated. The Italians were really the first to make decorative use of plants, with hedges, for example, used to link the house and garden structurally. The Renaissance movement originating in Italy spread northwards, together with increased knowledge about plants and their cultivation. In France the small formal gardens within the walls of mowed chateaux moved outside, becoming much grander in scope.
Unlike the Italian hillside gardens, the French ones were flat and straight, most of them situated in the fiat marshy areas to the south and west of Paris. The style was still very geometric, as the original pattern of formal beds within a grid system of paths was simply repeated in order to enlarge the garden.
The Romans put into practice what the Greeks wrote but the Roman garden was brought into the centre of the house, becoming an even more important part Of domestic life. We know of the ground pattern of early Roman town houses from excavations at Pompeii and villas elsewhere, and of their garden design from the letters of Pliny the younger.
The English term 'knot garden' refers to the style of flower beds which now evolved. They were small, usually raised, and laid Out in geometric patterns, edged with dwarf clipped shrubs such as box or thrift or with a herb like rosemary.
The Romans carried vegetable growing much further in their country homes because it was the main form of sustenance for rich and poor alike. Salad crops were grown and cabbage was said to be the favourite vegetable. Cato also wrote of turnips, beans, garlic, asparagus and radishes and later writers added carrots, onions, peas, lettuce, chicory, parsley, fennel, parsnips and melons. When the Romans went as conquerors to Europe, they introduced various plants, vegetables and fruit to different countries, together with their knowledge of agriculture and horticulture. - 15266
