The word “renaissance,” means
rebirth – and in the early 14th century, Italy was experiencing a
rebirth of the classical style. The art, music, and architecture of the time
all were results of a renewed spark of interest in the ancient Greek and Roman ideals.
On the philosophical and intellectual level, people were beginning to consider
their position in all of Creation and nature, pondering their relationship with
God and the spiritual. Ultimately, the Italian Renaissance combined the ancient
classical philosophies with the new Christian doctrine to create a new
perspective that strongly affected the progress of civilization throughout the
rest of history.
One prominent example of this merging of ancient Greek and Rome with the Catholic Church is found in St. Thomas Aquinas, an Italian philosopher and theologian of the early Renaissance. Thomas Aquinas was a proponent of natural theology, the idea that we can discover more about God through a study of his Creation – nature around us. By combining Christian doctrine and Aristotle’s logic, Aquinas’s studies ended up laying the basis for modern science.
Shortly after Thomas Aquinas came Petrarch, a humanist. Humanism during this era was not what we know it as today – it was the view that humans, though creatures of a greater God, are rational and capable of thinking for themselves. This was in contrast to the views common during the Middle Ages, which looked very much towards the afterlife, and what must be done on earth to achieve Heaven. Petrarch didn’t deny the existence of God or the afterlife – he just said that life on earth didn’t have to be entire drudgery. We could still experience and actively participate in the beauty and joy of life in God’s Earthly Creation before we (hopefully) experienced His Heavenly one.
Aquinas and Petrarch are good examples of the general philosophies that outlined the Italian Renaissance, and stretched into its art and science. Paintings and sculpture achieved a sense of perspective and realism. Architecture adopted the elegant lines and columns of Roman temples, returning to buildings that were pretty to look at, and not just defensive like the castles of the Middle Ages. Scientific method emerged, and studies in astronomy replaced the geocentric model of the solar system with the heliocentric. Every facet of life was affected by the new cultural perspective of the Renaissance.
Gardens, of course, were very much so affected by the Renaissance, and mirrored the new thoughts and ideas of the time in their designs. Classical models of the Roman Villa reappeared, to be both "looked at and looked out from," as said Leon Battista Alberti, the embodiment of the Renaissance Man. No longer were gardens an afterthought, squeezed into an enclosed corner in a Medieval castle - instead, they were incorporated into the architecture of the villa, like the peristyle gardens of ancient Rome. The garden was just as important a part of the architecture as the building was. Also like in the classical peristyle garden, the gardens of the Renaissance were full of the sound of rushing water through many fountains, and numerous meanings and allegories could be found in the statues, water features, and plants.
But in the peristyle, the gardens were enclosed - now, they stretched out openly from the villa, a physical representation of the new outward-looking philosophies at the time. Just as scientific liberation and enquiry was beginning to take hold, so gardens mirrored this with more expansive, worldly designs. The residents of the villa would be able to look out over the garden, and even beyond onto the cities and fields technically not a part of their property, and yet still merged with it, a kind of "borrowed landscape."
In the Villa Lante, the garden changed in design as it descended from the house. Higher up was the area called the Bosco, or forest, which was more informal and supposed to feel more natural and less constructed. But further down - following the water paths - the garden ended in a more formal section, as though expressing the ideas of the time that the world was something that could be rationalized and controlled by humans.
The Italian Renaissance garden was an attempt at that control. It was an attempt to find the balance between man and God, the balance between artistic nature and real nature. If we were rational humans in control of our own lives, with the ability to create art for our own enjoyment here on Earth, how far could we go combining God's (supposedly perfect) Creation with our own efforts at perfection?
One prominent example of this merging of ancient Greek and Rome with the Catholic Church is found in St. Thomas Aquinas, an Italian philosopher and theologian of the early Renaissance. Thomas Aquinas was a proponent of natural theology, the idea that we can discover more about God through a study of his Creation – nature around us. By combining Christian doctrine and Aristotle’s logic, Aquinas’s studies ended up laying the basis for modern science.
Shortly after Thomas Aquinas came Petrarch, a humanist. Humanism during this era was not what we know it as today – it was the view that humans, though creatures of a greater God, are rational and capable of thinking for themselves. This was in contrast to the views common during the Middle Ages, which looked very much towards the afterlife, and what must be done on earth to achieve Heaven. Petrarch didn’t deny the existence of God or the afterlife – he just said that life on earth didn’t have to be entire drudgery. We could still experience and actively participate in the beauty and joy of life in God’s Earthly Creation before we (hopefully) experienced His Heavenly one.
Aquinas and Petrarch are good examples of the general philosophies that outlined the Italian Renaissance, and stretched into its art and science. Paintings and sculpture achieved a sense of perspective and realism. Architecture adopted the elegant lines and columns of Roman temples, returning to buildings that were pretty to look at, and not just defensive like the castles of the Middle Ages. Scientific method emerged, and studies in astronomy replaced the geocentric model of the solar system with the heliocentric. Every facet of life was affected by the new cultural perspective of the Renaissance.
Gardens, of course, were very much so affected by the Renaissance, and mirrored the new thoughts and ideas of the time in their designs. Classical models of the Roman Villa reappeared, to be both "looked at and looked out from," as said Leon Battista Alberti, the embodiment of the Renaissance Man. No longer were gardens an afterthought, squeezed into an enclosed corner in a Medieval castle - instead, they were incorporated into the architecture of the villa, like the peristyle gardens of ancient Rome. The garden was just as important a part of the architecture as the building was. Also like in the classical peristyle garden, the gardens of the Renaissance were full of the sound of rushing water through many fountains, and numerous meanings and allegories could be found in the statues, water features, and plants.
But in the peristyle, the gardens were enclosed - now, they stretched out openly from the villa, a physical representation of the new outward-looking philosophies at the time. Just as scientific liberation and enquiry was beginning to take hold, so gardens mirrored this with more expansive, worldly designs. The residents of the villa would be able to look out over the garden, and even beyond onto the cities and fields technically not a part of their property, and yet still merged with it, a kind of "borrowed landscape."
In the Villa Lante, the garden changed in design as it descended from the house. Higher up was the area called the Bosco, or forest, which was more informal and supposed to feel more natural and less constructed. But further down - following the water paths - the garden ended in a more formal section, as though expressing the ideas of the time that the world was something that could be rationalized and controlled by humans.
The Italian Renaissance garden was an attempt at that control. It was an attempt to find the balance between man and God, the balance between artistic nature and real nature. If we were rational humans in control of our own lives, with the ability to create art for our own enjoyment here on Earth, how far could we go combining God's (supposedly perfect) Creation with our own efforts at perfection?
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