Gardens have always existed in the imaginations of men and women. Basically they have either been traditionally viewed as utilitarian places helping meet the needs of humankind or as places of beauty for the work of the gods. Earliest antiquity revealed both kinds of environments. The special gardens with abundant trees, fruits, vegetables and flowers in many mythologies indicate how early people saw them as sources of  sensual pleasure or places to obtain sacred power.

Take, for example, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon--the epitome of a nonutilitarian paradisiacal garden.  In 600 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II built this paradise garden for his homesick wife who longed for the mountains of her native Persia. The configuration of these gardens, which later became one of the original Seven Wonders of the World, was that of a rising, stepped-back succession of verdant terraces. Because it was so costly to build high structures on Babylon’s great plain, the Hanging Gardens, like many ancient gardens, were a sign of power and wealth.

Several hundred years later, the Romans, just as devoted to grandiosity, created their own historic garden at Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli. The idea of integrating the Villa with the garden was essential to its overall effect. The Romans achieved this by connecting the garden to the villa with colonnades. This inspiration for this classic Roman design was revealed when the great wall paintings of mosaics of Pompeii showed Roman families relaxing in their gardens, which were an extension of the physical house, enjoying both a sense of intimacy and power – the power and refuge of a safeguarding space. The Romans drew from the Persians, as well as the Egyptians and Greeks, by continuing the use of the reflecting pools.

Once the Roman Empire collapsed, monks preserved the old gardening patterns, but strictly for utilitarian purposes. Thus, the medieval garden was born. The great abbeys of England and France had major physic gardens with medicinal plants, and they routinely exchanged plants among one another. The areas were called “enclosed gardens” or “monastic gardens” with this basic pattern: Physic gardens were located next to the infirmaries; gardens next to the kitchens grew vegetables; cemetery gardens bore fruits and nuts on plants grown in espaliered patterns against monastery walls.  Roses, irises and lilies were cultivated for fragrances and religious symbolism.  Despite the prosaic nature of these gardens, this was an era when a literature and art of imaginary gardens and dreamworlds developed became highly developed. 

For example, the Mary Garden became a women's garden, which then developed into the rose garden.  It was a garden of purity -- every flower had symbolic meaning. While it was a place for socializing and relaxing, it was also a place much like the “sacred grove” of the Greeks -- a garden for the gods.  The Mary garden and the later-developing rose garden soon became enchanted gardens -- gardens of romance with birdsong and eternally fresh fruit and flowers.

From the medieval garden came the Renaissance gardens of Italy whose builders quested for the classical aesthetic in a garden landscape.  Petrarch wanted the garden to be used for receiving instruction in poetry and personal introspection. Villa d'Este in Italy was the finest Renaissance garden and the consummate water garden of Europe. In fact the statuary for this garden, built in the 15^th century, was taken from Hadrian’s Villa. Following the Italians’ formal gardens came the French formal garden, the most famous being Versailles, which was copied all over the world.  Once again, art, particularly European paintings of these gardens, became the blueprint for the copies later created by Jesuits missionaries around the world.

Finally, the utilitarian garden and the “place of beauty” concept from the Babylonians merged in the English Mannerist Garden of the 16^th century. Hans Vredeman de Vries created pattern books that initiated the cut parterre -- a type of bed specifically intended to display rare, exotic, flowering plants. Strange new tubers and bulbs introduced in the late 1500s quickly transformed northern European gardens. Onions actually became currency, as did tulips until their collapse in 1634. Most of these gardens were destroyed under Capability Brown with the advent of the English Landscape Garden of the 18^th century--a serious break with Italian and French formality.  Therefore, many of the Mannerist Gardens-or cut parterre gardens--have been restored in recent years.  Waddeston Manor in England is an excellent example while Castle Howard in York is an excellent example of the Capability Brown sweeping open vista style of landscape architecture.

Art of Travel, LLC takes you there, teaches you about this fascinating history through Gardeners, Head Gardeners, and Owners of England's vast estates.  This year the theme will be Elizabethan Gardens.  Come and learn.  We chart the course, but you make the trip.  Susan Mammel, Tour Director, CTA, MA.   Member of NTA and Virtuoso.