Italian Renaissance

.“Our age is a Golden Era which has revived from virtual extinction the liberal arts, grammar, poetry, rhetoric, painting, architecture, sculpture, music and singing to the Orphean lyre.”
Marsilio Ficino,1492

he four rider of the Apocalypse – war, famine, death and plague – had galloped through Europe during the dark and dreadful times of the Middle Ages. The Renaissance was a critical moment when, on the one hand a better knowledge of the past and, on the other, a fanatical interest in the present as well as the future, made it possible for society to dream that a man could become as genius. It was a time when an entire society believed and put all its energy and faith to work on man’s capacity to better himself. Renaissance could be called a state of transcendence at the human level, a dream state. Ancient mythology regained major significance during the Renaissance – it was believed that the secret, lost knowledge of the Ancients was hidden in myth and antiquity. Perhaps that is why Arcadia became such an influential point of reference. 

Arcadia was an invention of the Roman poet Virgil, the land of Pan (Greek for “all”) inhabited by shepherds, satyrs and nymphs. It was something like a secularized paradise: it was not a divine creation but an aesthetic fiction of happiness, an artistic product; an intermediate realm which lies somewhere between paradise and reality and which contains aspects of both. The Arcadian ideal of an ancient pastoral world was, of course, taken up and promoted at royal courts with aristocratic extravagance. From its origin in poetry and landscape painting Arcadia went on to become a leitmotif of Renaissance garden design. 

There have always been gardens – created by Semiramis, the Greeks, in the Middle Ages right up to the modern age. History does not suggest that all at once during the Renaissance and the Baroque period something quite new happened. In history there is always a before and an after. 1499 a novel called “Hypnerotomachia Polophilli” (The Strife of Love in a Dream) by Francesco Colonna was published in Venice. According to C.F. Schröer, “This work is of major significance for the history of ideas in garden design. It contains the fundamental ideas underlying the Renaissance garden in all their purity: a microcosmic gathering together of the whole of nature under the rule of mankind.” Gardens were no longer highly cultivated places in which much of the world was left behind and where man’s inner essence was prepared for a higher existence. Leon Battista Alberti (1404 – 1472) stipulated the new particular task of garden architecture: to imitate the idea of nature as a whole. The plan of a park or a garden was to be drawn up according to those “natural proportions” by which all of nature’s creations are formed. Thus beauty came to be understood as a universal law governing both nature and the creative artist. The architect should employ specified proportions which enable nature to reach its aesthetic objective. Arcadia featured nature as absolute creation which man ought to seek reunion with. However, the idea of beauty was obviously associated with a peculiar abstract “correspondence” with nature and not with nature itself. 

“While beauty derives from the material world, it must be shaped by man’s free creativity. Nature becomes the medium. Only the artist can reveal the beauty inherent in nature: hence the conclusion that, without the artist, nature is both unattractive and useless – and thus loses its most advantageous characteristics. From this perspective, the art of garden design is the highest expression of nature. In other words: nature only attains ultimate perfection through the caring and nurturing hand of the artist. There is thus no conflict between trimmed hedges, pruned trees or geometrical parterres and nature. The one is simply the raw material which has to be modeled into beauty. No wonder such philosophy proved a sweeping success. Particularly, of course, among artists, who now had a decisive role to play in the transformation of nature to art. It was likewise no wonder that artists turned increasingly to garden design, since they could here prove so convincingly to any onlooker how it was possible – in a few “creative” steps – to transform a piece of fallow land into a verdant work of art.”   C.F.Schrö?r 

Garden design derived from the city. The desire of the city dweller to own a piece of land outside the city was an ancient Mediterranean one. Its first fulfillment represented a villa. It was exactly that shift of cultural values from the monastery to the open-air sunny villa with a park that marked the beginning of the new era. And this to such an extent, that a country house without a garden was less regarded a villa than a garden without a house. The major question for garden design became the relationships and links between house, garden and countryside. The high walls built for protection from the potentially hostile environment were taken down during the Renaissance opening marvelous views of the peaceful surrounding countryside. The house was also open to the garden thus enriching the window view with diverse sceneries. Finally, the link between villa and countryside was achieved through terraces on the slopes. If the terrain offered no slopes, you can be sure they would have built them. 

So, we’ve come again to that interesting point in architectural design of gardens: the interaction between nature and art which turns into a conflict. As pointed out above, nature was considered perfection and material at the same time. So, the filling of whole areas, the diversion of rivers, the clearing and planting of complete woods were part of garden construction. These endeavors did not offend the idea of nature but simply allowed it to flourish only in those areas where art conceded that it will do so to the greatest effect. 

Perhaps the most innovative work of he gardening art was Belvedere country yard designed by Bramante. Its significance consists in the resolute rejection of the traditional relationship between garden and religion. Since Bramante, the garden became more “human”, acceible, secular.

The Italian gardens during the Renaissance usually stretched over a strictly limited area of up to 1 hectare. The architects built up their original works within this frame inextricably bound up with the terrain features. All gardens were planned geometrically. The main axis which ends with the main building was balanced through one or more cross axes. The parterre segmented in square flowerbeds took up the plain part of the garden. The official entrance was almost always situated low down the slope so that the terraced composition could be perceived best. Its different levels burst upon the visitor like a theatre set. 

The terraces designed with supporting walls, staircases, balustrades and vases that followed the lie of land are typical characteristic features of the Italian Renaissance gardens. The terraces and alleys were narrow while the supporting walls were high due to the steep terrain. The latter also allowed the construction of grottoes. Staircases combined with pools and fountains linked the terraces and represented a prime element with architectural significance. The amphitheater and water facilities also played an important role in Renaissance garden design. The steep terrain allowed certain amount of water to be used repeatedly in a system of fountains, cascades and pools placed at different levels of the composition. At the highest terrace there was usually a splendidly sculptured water source which supplied all waterworks. 

The loggia was also an inseparable composition part of every Italian villa. It was the spot, opening views of the park and thus realizing the transition between the enclosed space of the building and the garden. The sculptural decoration was temperate and balanced.