DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0460
France in the Time of the Renaissance
431
in the first half of the seventeenth century. Where it was not possible to find enough fall
for them, terraces of turf were built, as for instance on the flat ground at Liancourt, a
pleasant garden which the wife of Marshal Schomberg had enjoyed making. The garden
of St. Cloud boasted of the finest cascade then known. Among the many Italians who
came to France in the train of Maria de' Medici, and who with their great love of adventure
and picturesque appearance were characteristic of this court, the banking family of the
Gondi is conspicuous. They quickly acquired property and built a villa on the high bank
of the Seine near the boundaries of the town; and by the side of the house they made the
famous cascade, in Italian fashion, which Evelyn describes in its early condition. But
several decades later the place was destined to become far more magnificent, and the
great laying-out of the gardens took place in the reign of Louis XIV.
Evelyn's straightforward descriptions lead us easily through the first half of the
seventeenth century, which may conveniently bring to a close our survey of the art of
the Renaissance, little though France has to show of any kind of check or sudden upheaval
in the course of development. Evelyn visited not only the large towns, but also the little
town-gardens, whose limited space the owners tried to make look larger with painted
perspective. To Evelyn the small garden of the Comte de Liancourt seemed to look a great
deal larger by using this method, and by the help of paintings they made their little gardens
"flow for some miles." And a small doll-theatre at the end increased this childish pleasure.
Another garden which Evelyn liked very much belonged to a man called Morine, who
began as a simple gardener. He laid out his garden as a perfect oval surrounded by thuyas,
clipped smooth to look like walls, and within it he introduced very beautiful and at that
time unusual plants, such as tulips, ranunculuses, crocuses and anemones. He himself,
a very old collector, lived in a small garden-house at the end. It is evident that in this
type of small town-garden the love of surprises was particularly lively, for at "an house
called Maison Rouge" Evelyn hears a noise that "resembles the noise of a tempest,
batailles of guns, etc., at its issue," and much beside.
On the threshold of this period the French garden found its earliest poets. Rene
Rapin, the learned Jesuit who wrote so many books, published in 1665 a poem called Hor-
torum libri quattuor. This was in undisguised imitation of Virgil's Georgics, but aimed
at giving a supplement on the province of the garden, which the Roman poet had neglected*
Rapin had already seen something of the development of gardens in the grand siecle, and
this appears in much of what he wrote; but he chiefly concerns himself with the gardens of
the time of Maria de' Medici and Henry IV. All that he writes in his first book, The
Flower Garden, is what is demanded by the usual theorists; and about flowers he only
gives pretty myths in the style of Ovid. But in the second book he is inspired with new
ideas, the exhaustive treatment of the park (nemus): he says that when you step out of the
garden the park must at once appear as a stage formally arranged. The trees must be in
the form of the quincunx, with straight lines and right angles, although he also likes
slanting lines and circular arches in some places. All the paths have to be provided with
fine sand or closely mown grass, and at the sides the beeches or cypresses have to be
clipped so as to make straight walls, but the lighter branches may be worked into a
thousand shapes and mazes of any kind. He is full of praise for the oak as a good forest
tree, and he is emphatically opposed to the clipping of oaks, using all his rhetoric and
calling down all mythological punishments upon the heads of the desecrators of trees.
431
in the first half of the seventeenth century. Where it was not possible to find enough fall
for them, terraces of turf were built, as for instance on the flat ground at Liancourt, a
pleasant garden which the wife of Marshal Schomberg had enjoyed making. The garden
of St. Cloud boasted of the finest cascade then known. Among the many Italians who
came to France in the train of Maria de' Medici, and who with their great love of adventure
and picturesque appearance were characteristic of this court, the banking family of the
Gondi is conspicuous. They quickly acquired property and built a villa on the high bank
of the Seine near the boundaries of the town; and by the side of the house they made the
famous cascade, in Italian fashion, which Evelyn describes in its early condition. But
several decades later the place was destined to become far more magnificent, and the
great laying-out of the gardens took place in the reign of Louis XIV.
Evelyn's straightforward descriptions lead us easily through the first half of the
seventeenth century, which may conveniently bring to a close our survey of the art of
the Renaissance, little though France has to show of any kind of check or sudden upheaval
in the course of development. Evelyn visited not only the large towns, but also the little
town-gardens, whose limited space the owners tried to make look larger with painted
perspective. To Evelyn the small garden of the Comte de Liancourt seemed to look a great
deal larger by using this method, and by the help of paintings they made their little gardens
"flow for some miles." And a small doll-theatre at the end increased this childish pleasure.
Another garden which Evelyn liked very much belonged to a man called Morine, who
began as a simple gardener. He laid out his garden as a perfect oval surrounded by thuyas,
clipped smooth to look like walls, and within it he introduced very beautiful and at that
time unusual plants, such as tulips, ranunculuses, crocuses and anemones. He himself,
a very old collector, lived in a small garden-house at the end. It is evident that in this
type of small town-garden the love of surprises was particularly lively, for at "an house
called Maison Rouge" Evelyn hears a noise that "resembles the noise of a tempest,
batailles of guns, etc., at its issue," and much beside.
On the threshold of this period the French garden found its earliest poets. Rene
Rapin, the learned Jesuit who wrote so many books, published in 1665 a poem called Hor-
torum libri quattuor. This was in undisguised imitation of Virgil's Georgics, but aimed
at giving a supplement on the province of the garden, which the Roman poet had neglected*
Rapin had already seen something of the development of gardens in the grand siecle, and
this appears in much of what he wrote; but he chiefly concerns himself with the gardens of
the time of Maria de' Medici and Henry IV. All that he writes in his first book, The
Flower Garden, is what is demanded by the usual theorists; and about flowers he only
gives pretty myths in the style of Ovid. But in the second book he is inspired with new
ideas, the exhaustive treatment of the park (nemus): he says that when you step out of the
garden the park must at once appear as a stage formally arranged. The trees must be in
the form of the quincunx, with straight lines and right angles, although he also likes
slanting lines and circular arches in some places. All the paths have to be provided with
fine sand or closely mown grass, and at the sides the beeches or cypresses have to be
clipped so as to make straight walls, but the lighter branches may be worked into a
thousand shapes and mazes of any kind. He is full of praise for the oak as a good forest
tree, and he is emphatically opposed to the clipping of oaks, using all his rhetoric and
calling down all mythological punishments upon the heads of the desecrators of trees.