The Villa Lante at Bagnaia: An Allegory of Art and Nature
1977; College Art Association; Volume: 59; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00043079.1977.10787480
ISSN1559-6478
Autores Tópico(s)Architecture and Art History Studies
ResumoRecently, scholars have begun to apply the same art-historical methodology to Renaissance gardens that has long been associated with painting, sculpture, and architecture. One misconception, equating the Renaissance garden with a purely formal garden, has been corrected.1 Sixteenth-century Italian gardens contain a number of areas planted differently, among which is a formal garden, but also invariably a separate section devoted to a planted woods, or bosco. One may cite, for example, the Villa Medici at Castello, whose original planting is known from the Utens lunette of 1599 (Fig. 1) and from Vasari's account.2 The fresco shows the formal garden laid out along a central vertical axis; on either side, separated from it by walls, are square beds originally planted with orange and citrus trees and beyond them rows of fir trees.3 Above are also groves of trees.4 The Villa d'Este at Tivoli, whose original plan is recorded in the engraving of 1573 by Étienne Dupérac (Fig. 2), is composed of a single enclosed area, but it, too, includes both a formally planted section with compartments intersected by paths on the lowest level, and thick planting at the extreme sides and on the highest terrace of the hill.5 Within the Renaissance garden itself the formal is juxtaposed with the natural. This basic contrast between formal and natural, art and nature, provides the key to its meaning.
Referência(s)