When printing first reached western Europe books rarely had illustrations, and when they did they tended to be simple rather crude woodcuts which were few and far between. The quality of images improved gradually and by the mid-16thc books of architecture and even garden design were beginning to appear, beautifully illustrated and sometimes even with very little text. The coffee table book had arrived except that of course at that point there was no coffee.
Amongst the earliest and finest of these books were several by Hans Vredeman de Vries, a Dutch engineer, architect and artist.
He was the first person to present the garden as a work of art in its own right, so it’s with him that I’m going to start this look at early images of garden design. His influence soon spread far and wide and copies and echoes of his work can be found all over western Europe.
You might also think that an onion is an onion is an onion, although you’d probably recognise there are ones with brown papery skins, others with red and some with yellow or white. And when you start to start to think about you’ll probably recall that the insides also vary in colour, and shape and that maybe the taste and strength can vary too.
Transformed from purely a utilitarian garden to a much more horticulturally interesting one in the 18thc it became one of the most significant gardens in the world, before sinking into decline under British rule in the 19thc when much of the original ground was appropriated for grand institutional buildings.
The Garden History Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.