theory lab lecture series

The Early Modern Age can be characterized as a period of fundamental transformations,

encompassing all aspects of human life: The understanding and knowledge of the

world (its dimension and context), the economic foundations (the pursuit of trading

and expansion), the human self-awareness, and the relationship with nature. The new

consciousness of the world and the evolving self-image was expressed in plans, globes,

drawings and of course in architecture and garden design.

New incentives to Europe came from the Byzantium, where the ancient knowledge and

art had survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The rediscovery of the Old World

triggered numerous groundbreaking achievements in the fields of sciences and arts. In

1400, for instance, books and plans of Ptolemy „Geographia“ were brought to Italy, from

where they were rapidly spread all over Europe by letterpress printing. As a result, a new

map and measurement of the world was developed, following the concept of a homoge-

neous space and the principles of the Euclidean geometry. It included the known world

as well as the new discovered countries and continents. The own position was set using

the principles of central perspective that were introduced in the Renaissance, respectab-

ly using panoramic views that represented the fiction of the absolute knowledge by its

„heavenly“ view.

Even though the nobles and the upper clergy were the main clients of Renaissance

gardens, the humanists played a major role for the development of the garden design.

Thus, in 1545, the University of Padua created a botanical garden (hortus simplicus) in

order to study herbs (Leyden 1577, Paris 1626, Oxford 1632). Besides the scientific and

philosophical interest, Renaissance gardens were particularly driven by the pleasure to

create precise and fading pieces of art that also served the display of power. Within a

city, the gardens were part of the cabinet of wonder; outside the city walls, the gardens

with its terraces surrounded the rural villas. Artisticly cut hedges, topiary, arcades that

were all covered with Jasmine and Vine, labyrinths, and special areas for rare plants were

elements of the Renaissance gardens as well as tricky fountains, grottos with mussels,

automates and other magic objects.

Landscape Architecture HS 2013 Page 01

The Globe of Martin Behaim, 1492Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg

Plan of the Botanical Garden of PaduaGirolamo Porro, 1591

The Elegance of Reason. HS 2013 V06The Renaissance Villa

www.girot.arch.ethz.ch

www.facebook.com/LandscapeArchitectureETHZurich

Literature:

Cosgrove, Denis (ed.): Mappings, London 1999.

Hansmann, Wilfried: Gartenkunst der Renaissance und des Barock, Köln 1983.

Härting, Ursula (ed.): Gärten und Höfe der Rubens-zeit, Worms 2002.

Levenson, Jay A. (ed.): Circa 1492. Art in the Age of Exploration, New Haven and London 1991.

Mazzoni, Ira D.: Gärten und Parks. Gartenkunst von der Antike bis heute, Hildesheim 2005.

Ovid, Metamorphosen.

Prest, John: The Garden of Eden. The Botanic Gar-den and the Re-Creation of Paradise, New Haven and London 1981.

Schneider, Ute: Die Macht der Karten. Eine Geschichte der Kartographie vom Mittelalter bis heute, Darmstadt 2004.

Van der Ree, Paul; Smienk, Gerrit; Steenbergen, Clemens: Italian Villas and Gardens, Amsterdam 1992.

Landscape Architecture HS 2013 Page 02

Villa d’Este. Tivoli, Engraving by Étienne Dupérac,1573 In: Härting 2002

Universalis Cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii alioruque lustrationes, Martin Waldseemüller, 1507. In: Schneider 2004

A mythological and Christian program of sculptures complemented the self-image of

the owner of the garden. In the middle of the 16th Century, the Italian humanists Jacopo

Bonfadio and Bartolomeo Taegio influenced, by referring to Cicero, the term „terza natu-

ra“, the “nature linked with art” in order to embrace the phenomena of the Renaissance

gardens: Nature for refreshment and agrément.