DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16633#0025
6
History of Garden Art
encroaching on their living space. When Montaigne sees them on his journey to Italy,
he has much to say about their water-tricks and devices. Drawings of a somewhat later
date (Fig. 356) show a great number of notable gardens at Augsburg, founded m the
sixteenth century, as many inside the town as outside the walls. There is as a rule an oblong
strip, with leafy paths all round, and beautiful flower-beds. But the botanical interest
always reigned supreme. In the year 1560 the famous botanist Clusius went on a travelling
expedition with the heir of Count Anton Fugger to collect new plants for his gardens,
because everyone showed the utmost eagerness to be the first in introducing a new plant
into his own garden. It was a wonderful claim to honour and glory when Councillor
Johann Heinrich Herward of Augsburg flowered the first tulip in 1559, its bulbs having been
sent to Augsburg by the hand of Busbecq the imperial messenger. Thither went Conrad
Gesner, and had a woodcut made for his book De Hortis Germanise. These flowers were
destined to develop to such effect as to influence greatly the history of Dutch trade.
Other towns were not much behind Augsburg, for travelling scholars carried the
fashion to all parts. As early as 1489 a garden belonging to the Canon Mariensiiss on
the cathedral island at Breslau was talked about; and this one, as well as the garden of
the physician Woysel (which was flourishing between the years 1540 and 1560), belongs
naturally to the class of private botanical gardens, though the descriptions of Erasmus
have taught us that such places were not wanting in style and artistic skill. In the last third
of that century there was another doctor at Breslau, Laurentius Scholz, and a picture of
his garden reminds us strongly of what Erasmus says. Schohz had studied m Padua,
leaving there in 1579. Six years later he returned to his native town, and as his means
increased so also did his delight in the garden: he felt that the care of it was a
patriotic duty, and its reputation soon spread outside Breslau. Like the garden of Erasmus,
that of Scholz was a formal square, and was divided into four sections by crossing paths.
A Latin inscription was chiselled on the chief gate: " To the praise and honour of Almighty
God, to the glory of my native town, for the use of friends and students of botany, also
for my own delight, I have established this garden, long neglected heretofore, at my own
expense, and have furnished it with indigenous and foreign plants."
The first section, reached from the main gate, was the flower-garden, which was
laid out in beds, perhaps enclosed with a palisade, and planted with flowers which were
used for wreaths and nosegays. Doctor Scholz; took great pains that we should know what
the plants were; not only was he a useful medical writer who was always pleased to go
beyond his own garden, but after the fashion of his day he had his plants faithfully drawn
by a nature artist of Breslau. The chief constituents of his garden were still the old native
plants: in spring, snowdrops, violets, crocuses, primulas, auriculas, and crown imperials;
in summer, columbines, snapdragons, cornflowers, poppies, and lilies, but during the
last thirty years tulips had come from the East, and were shown with great pride m this
garden. To the doctor and botanist, however, the second section, the real medicinal-garden,
was more important. Here there were 385 kinds, and among them many foreign plants,
which the doctor had procured through his connection with Spain, Italy, and Austria.
They were planted in beds, and here also for each kind there was a separate bed. By the
side of the medicinal herbs (just as we know them by the Capitulare and the cloister
plan of St. Gall) there are found the aromatic plants of Italian gardens, such as basil,
marjoram, balm, hyssop, rosemary, and dittany. But certain novelties also flowered here,
History of Garden Art
encroaching on their living space. When Montaigne sees them on his journey to Italy,
he has much to say about their water-tricks and devices. Drawings of a somewhat later
date (Fig. 356) show a great number of notable gardens at Augsburg, founded m the
sixteenth century, as many inside the town as outside the walls. There is as a rule an oblong
strip, with leafy paths all round, and beautiful flower-beds. But the botanical interest
always reigned supreme. In the year 1560 the famous botanist Clusius went on a travelling
expedition with the heir of Count Anton Fugger to collect new plants for his gardens,
because everyone showed the utmost eagerness to be the first in introducing a new plant
into his own garden. It was a wonderful claim to honour and glory when Councillor
Johann Heinrich Herward of Augsburg flowered the first tulip in 1559, its bulbs having been
sent to Augsburg by the hand of Busbecq the imperial messenger. Thither went Conrad
Gesner, and had a woodcut made for his book De Hortis Germanise. These flowers were
destined to develop to such effect as to influence greatly the history of Dutch trade.
Other towns were not much behind Augsburg, for travelling scholars carried the
fashion to all parts. As early as 1489 a garden belonging to the Canon Mariensiiss on
the cathedral island at Breslau was talked about; and this one, as well as the garden of
the physician Woysel (which was flourishing between the years 1540 and 1560), belongs
naturally to the class of private botanical gardens, though the descriptions of Erasmus
have taught us that such places were not wanting in style and artistic skill. In the last third
of that century there was another doctor at Breslau, Laurentius Scholz, and a picture of
his garden reminds us strongly of what Erasmus says. Schohz had studied m Padua,
leaving there in 1579. Six years later he returned to his native town, and as his means
increased so also did his delight in the garden: he felt that the care of it was a
patriotic duty, and its reputation soon spread outside Breslau. Like the garden of Erasmus,
that of Scholz was a formal square, and was divided into four sections by crossing paths.
A Latin inscription was chiselled on the chief gate: " To the praise and honour of Almighty
God, to the glory of my native town, for the use of friends and students of botany, also
for my own delight, I have established this garden, long neglected heretofore, at my own
expense, and have furnished it with indigenous and foreign plants."
The first section, reached from the main gate, was the flower-garden, which was
laid out in beds, perhaps enclosed with a palisade, and planted with flowers which were
used for wreaths and nosegays. Doctor Scholz; took great pains that we should know what
the plants were; not only was he a useful medical writer who was always pleased to go
beyond his own garden, but after the fashion of his day he had his plants faithfully drawn
by a nature artist of Breslau. The chief constituents of his garden were still the old native
plants: in spring, snowdrops, violets, crocuses, primulas, auriculas, and crown imperials;
in summer, columbines, snapdragons, cornflowers, poppies, and lilies, but during the
last thirty years tulips had come from the East, and were shown with great pride m this
garden. To the doctor and botanist, however, the second section, the real medicinal-garden,
was more important. Here there were 385 kinds, and among them many foreign plants,
which the doctor had procured through his connection with Spain, Italy, and Austria.
They were planted in beds, and here also for each kind there was a separate bed. By the
side of the medicinal herbs (just as we know them by the Capitulare and the cloister
plan of St. Gall) there are found the aromatic plants of Italian gardens, such as basil,
marjoram, balm, hyssop, rosemary, and dittany. But certain novelties also flowered here,