CHAPTER I 



ANCIENT GARDENS IN EUROPE 



^rmrv Y^HE art of garden design, like all the decorative arts, 

 extended with civilization from East to West. The 

 Greeks drew their earliest inspirations from Egypt, 

 Persia, and Assyria, and in their turn passed on the 

 tradition to the Romans. Upon the banks of the 

 Nile horticulture flourished from the tenth to the 

 third century B.C., and there is no lack of evidence to 

 show that garden design was practised as an art from the very earliest ages 

 and flourished especially during the fourth, twelfth and eighteenth dynasties. 

 Under the rule of the Ptolemies and in the early years of Roman 

 domination, Egypt was one of the most fertile regions of the world, and in the 

 Augustan Age the public and private gardens of Alexandria are said to have 

 covered more than a quarter of the city area. From the many graphic records 

 that have been brought to light in modern times, it is not a difficult matter to 

 obtain a very accurate idea of the plan of these ancient Egyptian gardens. 

 In order to facilitate irrigation they were usually laid out, either upon the 

 banks of the Nile or upon canals fed by it, and took the form of a rectan- 

 gular area, surrounded by an embattled wall or palisade, the entrance 

 being by means of high gates or -pylons, whose lintels and jambs were 

 decorated with hieroglyphic inscriptions. The walks were shaded by palms 

 or by tunnels of trained plants, similar to the pleached alley that was so pre- 

 valent a feature of the seventeenth century gardens ; small canals traversed 

 the gardens and fed the numerous tanks, whilst here and there gaily 

 painted pavilions and bowers, lightly constructed of trellis, were reflected in 

 the tranquil pools, glistening with the lotus and tenanted by a large variety 

 of fish, ducks, cranes and other aquatic birds. ^ 



^ See Charles Joret, Les Plantes dans Vantiquite et au moyen age. Paris, 1897. 



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