Handout

theory lab lecture series
The Elegance of Reason. HS 2013 V06
The Renaissance Villa
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 homogeneous 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, respectably 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.
The Globe of Martin Behaim, 1492
Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg
Plan of the Botanical Garden of Padua
Girolamo Porro, 1591
www.girot.arch.ethz.ch
www.facebook.com/LandscapeArchitectureETHZurich
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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 natura“, the “nature linked with art” in order to embrace the phenomena of the Renaissance
gardens: Nature for refreshment and agrément.
Literature:
Cosgrove, Denis (ed.): Mappings, London 1999.
Hansmann, Wilfried: Gartenkunst der Renaissance
und des Barock, Köln 1983.
Härting, Ursula (ed.): Gärten und Höfe der Rubenszeit, 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 Garden 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.
Universalis Cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et
Americi Vespucii alioruque lustrationes, Martin Waldseemüller, 1507.
In: Schneider 2004
Villa d’Este. Tivoli, Engraving by Étienne Dupérac,1573
In: Härting 2002
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