DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0169
Byzantine Gardens
141
with the metal tree first mentioned in the Mahawamsa, but the Byzantine court was really
only copying the splendour of the Persian Great King, whose throne was shaded by a golden
plane-tree. Of Arabian development we shall hear anon.
The tree idea found its way into the love romances also. Although one of these tales
bears the classical name of Achilleis, this name is but a veil of the slightest, and once
stripped off there is only the ordinary fashionable love story, with its usual descriptions
of tourneys, fair maidens, palaces, and gardens. In one of these lovely gardens—alas, too
lovely, for words always fail the narrator to describe it—there is the golden plane-tree
once more, and in it are birds that begin to sing
as the wind waves in the branches. At this period
the artificial tree had entirely dropped any
religious significance.
Later we shall see how the Crusaders
brought news of it to Europe. In the thirteenth
century a French goldsmith, commissioned by
the Great Khan of Tartary, was clever enough
to make a beautiful object of art (Fig. 101) that
has been preserved; it is a silver tree with gold
leaves, and dragons' heads on the branches,
shooting out some liquid (which is no doubt
wine) into four vessels guarded by little lions.
In another romance there is a marvellous bath
in a park: the vaulting of the roof is a tree
studded with jewels for fruit, and a vine made
of gold climbs up the face of the wall and mixes
with the branches of the tree. Mirrors are set
round about, so that anyone who comes in may
see the garden repeated. (In the romance by
Tatius the simple mirror of the lake had to
reflect the garden picture.) As a fact, this
Byzantine romance is made on a real pattern,
and there is talk at Byzantium in very early
days of a mirror bath. One room in the palace of the Chrysotriclinium was "turned
into a flowering rose-garden, wherein different kinds of many-coloured stones imitated
the forms of living trees, and round them twined climbing plants, making an extraordinary
combined effect." A silver enclosure, like a ring, shut in the whole place, which gave much
enjoyment to the beholders. A garden-room like this goes back to a Roman model, based
on an earlier original. Of its development at the Italian Renaissance we shall speak later.
There is very little information about the gardens of those Byzantine villas that were
outside the town walls. We hear of some names that stir our imagination, such as the
Pearl, beloved of the Emperor Theophilus, and the Philopation (a park near the city),
well known later on. The private pleasure-gardens were probably not very different from
those of the palace. Among the Byzantines it was the same as with their neighbours m
the East—they all took great delight in the chase and in keeping up extensive hunting
parks. Their summer homes were generally in such parks, and often there were many
FIG. IOI. A SILVER TREE FOUNTAIN
141
with the metal tree first mentioned in the Mahawamsa, but the Byzantine court was really
only copying the splendour of the Persian Great King, whose throne was shaded by a golden
plane-tree. Of Arabian development we shall hear anon.
The tree idea found its way into the love romances also. Although one of these tales
bears the classical name of Achilleis, this name is but a veil of the slightest, and once
stripped off there is only the ordinary fashionable love story, with its usual descriptions
of tourneys, fair maidens, palaces, and gardens. In one of these lovely gardens—alas, too
lovely, for words always fail the narrator to describe it—there is the golden plane-tree
once more, and in it are birds that begin to sing
as the wind waves in the branches. At this period
the artificial tree had entirely dropped any
religious significance.
Later we shall see how the Crusaders
brought news of it to Europe. In the thirteenth
century a French goldsmith, commissioned by
the Great Khan of Tartary, was clever enough
to make a beautiful object of art (Fig. 101) that
has been preserved; it is a silver tree with gold
leaves, and dragons' heads on the branches,
shooting out some liquid (which is no doubt
wine) into four vessels guarded by little lions.
In another romance there is a marvellous bath
in a park: the vaulting of the roof is a tree
studded with jewels for fruit, and a vine made
of gold climbs up the face of the wall and mixes
with the branches of the tree. Mirrors are set
round about, so that anyone who comes in may
see the garden repeated. (In the romance by
Tatius the simple mirror of the lake had to
reflect the garden picture.) As a fact, this
Byzantine romance is made on a real pattern,
and there is talk at Byzantium in very early
days of a mirror bath. One room in the palace of the Chrysotriclinium was "turned
into a flowering rose-garden, wherein different kinds of many-coloured stones imitated
the forms of living trees, and round them twined climbing plants, making an extraordinary
combined effect." A silver enclosure, like a ring, shut in the whole place, which gave much
enjoyment to the beholders. A garden-room like this goes back to a Roman model, based
on an earlier original. Of its development at the Italian Renaissance we shall speak later.
There is very little information about the gardens of those Byzantine villas that were
outside the town walls. We hear of some names that stir our imagination, such as the
Pearl, beloved of the Emperor Theophilus, and the Philopation (a park near the city),
well known later on. The private pleasure-gardens were probably not very different from
those of the palace. Among the Byzantines it was the same as with their neighbours m
the East—they all took great delight in the chase and in keeping up extensive hunting
parks. Their summer homes were generally in such parks, and often there were many
FIG. IOI. A SILVER TREE FOUNTAIN