Product Description

The great formal gardens of Tudor and Stuart England are a lost art form. This book sets out to evoke both the people and the ideas that led to the creation of the English Renaissance garden. The great formal gardens of Tudor and Stuart England are a totally lost art form. Swept away by the exponents of the landscape style in the 18th century, they are now seen in the form of Victorian re-creations around the ancient manor houses of England. But before Repton, Capability Brown and Henry Wise, England had been open to all the impulses that made the Renaissance garden. Up to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642, the response had been some of the most legendary garden complexes of Renaissance Europe: Henry VIII's Hampton Court, Burgley's Theobalds, Lord Pembroke's Wilton. Intertwined with this story, which touches on the history of politics, art, architecture, literature and ideas, are some of the great figures of the age: Robert Cecil, Francis Bacon, Inigo Jones, Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford, Charles I and Henrietta Maria, John Evelyn and Andrew Marvell. The study includes some visual material in the form of plans, diagrams, views and engravings of the lost gardens of Tudor and Stuart England.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #207418 in Books
• Published on: 1984-04-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Customer Reviews

First class academic garden history
A fine peice of garden history that shows up many publications in the field for the facile coffee table books they are. This thoroughly researched, lucidly written work places garden design squarely in its cultural and political context. The narrative is perhaps tighter in the 16th century chapters before the increasing rate of change of the 17th century makes it a little less coherant, but the only real quibble is that the author does not look at Tudor gardens beyond the royal palaces and prodigy houses nor how the design of great Jacobean gardens (particularly the royal gardens) filtered down to the lesser nobility. This might have given more examples to work with, even if it meant stretching the time frame slightly later.