DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16633#0062
Germany and the Netherlands in the Time of the Renaissance
43
To-day one seeks with great difficulty for specimens of wrecked remains of grottoes and
alcoves, to build up the old scene.
Andreas Harten, a deeply religious man and an enthusiastic Protestant, published
a curious pamphlet about gardens in 1648, in which in 233 pages he compares the Bible
to a pleasure-garden. The title of his book, which is full of superstition and witch-lore,
is Worldly and Heavenly Gardens. In spite of everything, including his start in life as a
taverner, he was himself a clever gardener, and at that time in the employ of Christian
von Schonburg-Glauchau-Waldenburg, at Rochsburg in Saxony. Harten describes this
garden (which he brought to great beauty), with its hedged-m paths, furnished with
domes, towers, doors and windows, symmetrically laid-out parterres, again broken up
into separate divisions with box edging, and each of these containing only one species
of plant. He says in his book that since the Reformation (to which he attributes every
good thing) "useful and necessary buildings for gardens and herbs have again reached
so flourishing a state, though after great expense, that there is hardly a townsman who
keeps anything in a town, but spends his all on garden building, to say nothing of potentates,
lords, and nobles."
Harten contrasts this happy time before the Thirty Years' War with the gloomy days
he was then living m. "To hinder the delightful garden-building day by day, the devil
is always at work, and seeks out the right places; that is, on account of our sins, he
incites the great potentates against one another, so that they lose sight of all the peaceful
pleasures of eye and heart (which aforetime they took in their gardens), and he makes them
FIG. 387. HEIDELBEPG CASTLE—THE INTERIOR OF THE GROTTO
43
To-day one seeks with great difficulty for specimens of wrecked remains of grottoes and
alcoves, to build up the old scene.
Andreas Harten, a deeply religious man and an enthusiastic Protestant, published
a curious pamphlet about gardens in 1648, in which in 233 pages he compares the Bible
to a pleasure-garden. The title of his book, which is full of superstition and witch-lore,
is Worldly and Heavenly Gardens. In spite of everything, including his start in life as a
taverner, he was himself a clever gardener, and at that time in the employ of Christian
von Schonburg-Glauchau-Waldenburg, at Rochsburg in Saxony. Harten describes this
garden (which he brought to great beauty), with its hedged-m paths, furnished with
domes, towers, doors and windows, symmetrically laid-out parterres, again broken up
into separate divisions with box edging, and each of these containing only one species
of plant. He says in his book that since the Reformation (to which he attributes every
good thing) "useful and necessary buildings for gardens and herbs have again reached
so flourishing a state, though after great expense, that there is hardly a townsman who
keeps anything in a town, but spends his all on garden building, to say nothing of potentates,
lords, and nobles."
Harten contrasts this happy time before the Thirty Years' War with the gloomy days
he was then living m. "To hinder the delightful garden-building day by day, the devil
is always at work, and seeks out the right places; that is, on account of our sins, he
incites the great potentates against one another, so that they lose sight of all the peaceful
pleasures of eye and heart (which aforetime they took in their gardens), and he makes them
FIG. 387. HEIDELBEPG CASTLE—THE INTERIOR OF THE GROTTO