DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0442
France in the Time of the Renaissance
413
walks between. In two places sloping paths led to the second terrace, and these were
bordered by fine wooden pavilions and arched ways, in which the master produced his
best work. This second terrace was a vegetable and fruit garden, which covered the foot
of the hill in regular rows of avenues and formal beds of trapezium shape.
The symmetry of the large garden which Catherine de' Medici made at the royal
seat in Paris, the Tuileries, was almost too stiff. Catherine had the castle built by Philibert
de TOrme, with a wall round its garden, so that not only was this separated from the
castle by a street outside, but had practically no relation with it, though both were in the
same axial line (Fig. 330). The entire evenness of the ground and the little use of water
rendered the garden very uninteresting in its first state. Visitors made for the place of
echoes at the end of the garden, a semicircular region where voices at certain spots seemed
to come from the clouds or perhaps from under the earth. They also found a labyrinth
and a sundial in the shrubbery, and best of all a grotto that was made by Palissy—a master-
piece to be spoken of later. In Henry IV.'s time the parterres received particular notice,
for the king planted the great mulberry avenues at the side of the garden. The chief
important changes really became apparent in the great period of French gardens, at a
far later date, under Louis XIV.
Although after the middle of the sixteenth century the complete regularity of the
ground-plan became a matter of course everywhere, only to be yielded through sheer
practical necessity, it was quite permissible to indulge any sentimental fancy within these
limits. Every geometrical form was allowed, such as a triangle at Azay-le-Rideau, and a
pentagon at the charming little castle of Maune, which is rather like an attempt at
Caprarola in miniature. The plan seems really to have been made inside a circle, so regular
is it with its perfect rounds and lines of connection. There is a pretty little garden, but only
on one side: it leads out from the front of the house, and contains a sunk basin. Central
buildings in any kind of geometrical form are to be found in the large "Ideal-plans"
which architects set out on the drawing-board, indulging their fancy untrammelled by
FIG. 330. THE TUILERIES-PLAN OF THE GARDENS
I-2 E
413
walks between. In two places sloping paths led to the second terrace, and these were
bordered by fine wooden pavilions and arched ways, in which the master produced his
best work. This second terrace was a vegetable and fruit garden, which covered the foot
of the hill in regular rows of avenues and formal beds of trapezium shape.
The symmetry of the large garden which Catherine de' Medici made at the royal
seat in Paris, the Tuileries, was almost too stiff. Catherine had the castle built by Philibert
de TOrme, with a wall round its garden, so that not only was this separated from the
castle by a street outside, but had practically no relation with it, though both were in the
same axial line (Fig. 330). The entire evenness of the ground and the little use of water
rendered the garden very uninteresting in its first state. Visitors made for the place of
echoes at the end of the garden, a semicircular region where voices at certain spots seemed
to come from the clouds or perhaps from under the earth. They also found a labyrinth
and a sundial in the shrubbery, and best of all a grotto that was made by Palissy—a master-
piece to be spoken of later. In Henry IV.'s time the parterres received particular notice,
for the king planted the great mulberry avenues at the side of the garden. The chief
important changes really became apparent in the great period of French gardens, at a
far later date, under Louis XIV.
Although after the middle of the sixteenth century the complete regularity of the
ground-plan became a matter of course everywhere, only to be yielded through sheer
practical necessity, it was quite permissible to indulge any sentimental fancy within these
limits. Every geometrical form was allowed, such as a triangle at Azay-le-Rideau, and a
pentagon at the charming little castle of Maune, which is rather like an attempt at
Caprarola in miniature. The plan seems really to have been made inside a circle, so regular
is it with its perfect rounds and lines of connection. There is a pretty little garden, but only
on one side: it leads out from the front of the house, and contains a sunk basin. Central
buildings in any kind of geometrical form are to be found in the large "Ideal-plans"
which architects set out on the drawing-board, indulging their fancy untrammelled by
FIG. 330. THE TUILERIES-PLAN OF THE GARDENS
I-2 E