ITALIAN GARDENS

(Giardino all'italiana)
PREPARED BY: MANSAROVAR, MUKUL, NIPUN
INTRODUCTION
The Giardino all'italiana or Italian garden is
stylistically based on:
SYMMETRY,
AXIAL GEOMETRY
THE PRINCIPLE OF IMPOSING ORDER OVER
NATURE.

It influenced the history of gardening,

especially French gardens and English gardens.
HISTORY.
Italian renaissance gardens originate from
the 15th century in Italy, where proud villas
with luxurious and extravagant gardens told
the tale of a life centered on leisure and
prosperity.
The few who lived in these magnificent
villas and roamed these fascinating gardens
were fortunate during the time of the
plague, usually avoiding it entirely.
The Italian renaissance garden innovated
the art of gardening as well as the
architecture of waterways.
HISTORY.
During this period of experimentation and invention,
the owners of the villas commissioned architects to
build special pipes that would create fountains with
continuously flowing water.
Prior to the Italian Renaissance, Italian Medieval
gardens were enclosed by walls, and were
devoted to growing vegetables, fruits and
medicinal herbs, or, in the case of monastery
gardens, for silent meditation and prayer.
The Italian Renaissance garden broke down the
wall between the garden, the house, and the
landscape outside.
The Italian Renaissance garden, like Renaissance
art and architecture, emerged from the
rediscovery by Renaissance scholars of classical
Roman models.
INFLUENCES
ROMAN INFLUENCE
INDOOR
ORNAMENTAL HORTICULTURE

The garden was a place of peace and tranquillity

a refuge from urban lifeand a place filled
with religious and symbolic meanings. As Roman
culture developed and became increasingly
influenced by foreign civilizations through trade,
the use of gardens expanded and gardens
ultimately thrived in Ancient Rome.
INFLUENCES
Italian Medieval gardens
ENCLOSED BY WALLS, AND
FOR GROWING VEGETABLES, FRUITS
AND MEDICINAL HERBS
MONASTRIAL GARDENS,
FOR SILENT MEDITATION AND
PRAYER.
Generally, monastic garden types consisted of
kitchen gardens, infirmary gardens, cemetery
orchards, cloister garths and vineyards.
Individual monasteries might also have had a
green court, a plot of grass and trees where
horses could graze, as well as a cellarers
garden or private gardens for obedientiaries ,
monks who held specific posts within the
monastery.
INFLUENCES Italian Renaissance gardens
INSPIRED BY CLASSICAL IDEALS OF ORDER AND
BEAUTY
FOR PLEASURE OF VIEW OF GARDEN ,LANDSCAPE
BEYOND,
FOR CONTEMPLATION
FOR ENJOYMENT OF THE SIGHTS, SOUNDS AND SMELLS
OF GARDEN ITSELF

During the late Renaissance, gardens became larger

and even more symmetrical, and were filled with
fountains, statues, grottoes, water organs and other
features designed to delight their owners and amuse
and impress visitors.
 Geometrical patterned beds , or patterres

FEATURES are a distinct element of Italian style.

Traditionally , Italian garden had few flowers.
Display and backdrop for sculpture.
Contrast of sun and shades.
Water features
Green being dominant color of the Italian
garden.
Theres no single style in Italian gardens,
they have been shaped by climate, geography
, history and Roman Renaissance.
It basically displays careful design to
showcase mans control over nature.
A perfect Italian garden brings them with
fusion of formal and informal spaces.
The geometrical plants take care of formal
preview and a natural presentation suffices
for the informal space.
Separated into compartments that could be
named, enclosed, and hidden to create an
unfolding sequence of spaces. The axis
organised and unified the whole composition.
ELEMENTS
Staircases
Balustrades
Sculpture
Cascades Pavilions
Shady Walkways
Water Fountains
Pavements
Promenade
Grotto
ELEMENTS
Outlines with evergreen
The most recognizable elements of classical
Italian garden are the evergreen outlined
beds.
Box (buxus) hedge, myrtle , rosemary and
other evergreen plants are trimmed into a
hedge shape to divide the beds.
More importantly , the hedges provided
shape and green even in the gardens fallow
months because the Renaissance Garden is
meant for year round pleasure.
Topiary and Statuary
Topiary: are evergreen plants shaped and
trimmed into amusing forms, are used to add
humor and playfulness to the garden.
Statuary is used to feature a fountain or a
grotto. It is never vulgar or offensive, but
humorous and graceful.
ELEMENTS
Fruit Trees

Renaissance Garden fruit trees are clipped

and well tended.
Some are planted in pots, others are planted
in open ground, most often against wall.
Citrus fruits are often planted up in pots so
they can beset outdoors during warm
months and indoors during winters.
Other fruit trees are usually trained s
arches or pegolas , when ther are not
formed as an esplandes against a south
facing wall for early ripening.
ELEMENTS
Promenade and Arches
Evergreen often line pathways and its not
always box hedging. Laurel, Yew, Cypresses
,Fir ,Oaks ,Plum and Junipers trees are used
to create green walls , arches and living
pergolas.
Footpaths are designed to offer varied walks
with varied views through the garden.
Terracing
The ideal Renaissance garden is terraced on
gently sloping hillside. The various levels are
joined up by paths and short flights of steps.
Terraces are used mainly to divide the
garden into rooms with varying moods
,and to limit the vies and vistas.
Looking down from a villa, however, the
terraces should create a tableau of
pleasuring vistas, artistically sculpted views.
ELEMENTS
Trellises and Climbing Plants
Trellises are used to rooms and line paths
in the garden. They are trained with climbing
plants like ivy, roses, honeysuckle, or grape
vines.
The climbing plants are also trained over
structures such as pergolas, porticos and
pavilions. Flowering climbers are preferred
Potted plants
Terra-cotta pots , often covered with figures
and designs are common decorative
features in Renaissance Gardens.
Flowers , fruits trees and herbs can be
potted up and moved around the garden for
variety and added colour . They are almost
always displayed in balanced symmetry.
ELEMENTS
Secret Garden and Grotto
A hideaway in the garden that might contain
a vine-draped pergola or just a tucked-away
bench provides an intimate getaway space.
Often an Italian garden includes a grotto --
an artificial cave filled with sculpture and
furnishings where one can sip wine in a
refreshingly cool space.
Water
The sound and cooling effects of water are
Fountain essential elements of the Italian garden,
whether from bubbling fountains, pools or
machine cascades. Often, an ornate stone fountain
shooting arcs of water forms the focal point
of 1588 of the garden.
In old Italy, water triggers under the
pathways would send water shooting out of
hidden pipes when stepped on
EXAMPLES
Villa Medici in Fiesole
The oldest existing Italian Renaissance
garden is at the Villa Medici in Fiesole, north
of Florence.
The Villa Medici followed Alberti's precepts
that a villa should have a view 'that overlooks
the city, the owner's land, the sea or a great
plain, and familiar hills and mountains,' and
that the foreground have 'the delicacy of
gardens.
EXAMPLES
The garden has two large terraces, one at
the ground floor level and the other at the
level of the first floor.
Unlike later gardens, the Villa Medici did not
have a grand staircase or other feature to
link the two levels.
From the reception rooms on the first floor,
guests could go out to the loggia and from
there to the garden so the loggia was a
transition space connecting the interior with
the exterior.
EXAMPLES
Villa Castello, Tuscany,
(1538)
The garden was laid out on a gentle slope
between the villa and the hill of Monte
Morello. Tribolo first built a wall across the
slope, dividing it into an upper garden filled
with orange trees, and a lower garden that
was subdivided into garden rooms with walls
of hedges, rows of trees and tunnels of
citrus trees and cedars.
A central axis, articulated by a series of
fountains, extended from the villa up to the
base of Monte Morello. In this arrangement,
the garden had both grand perspectives and
enclosed, private spaces
EXAMPLES
The lower garden had a large marble
fountain that was meant to be seen against a
backdrop of dark cypresses, with figures
of Hercules and Antaeus. Just above this
fountain, in the center of the garden, was a
labyrinth formed by cypress, laurel, myrtle,
roses and box hedges.
At the far end of the garden and set against a
wall, Tribolo created an elaborate grotto,
decorated with mosaics, pebbles, sea shells,
imitation stalactites, and niches with groups
of statues of domestic and exotic animals
and birds, many with real horns, antlers and
tusks.
EXAMPLES
Above the grotto, on the hillside, was small
wood, or bosco, with a pond in the center. In
the pond is a bronze statue of a shivering
giant, with cold water running down over his
head, which represents either the month of
January or the Apennine Mountains.
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