FRENCH GARDENS: i6th AND EARLY 17TH CENTURIES 75 



his day. In 1685 the park and gardens were almost entirely destroyed by 

 Le Notre, and the beautiful decorations of the sixteenth century nearly all 

 annihilated. 



Besides Du Cerceau the principal professional garden designers of the 

 sixteenth and early 

 seventeenth c e n - 

 turies were Bernard 

 Palissy, Olivier de 

 Serres and the three 

 Mollets. 



Bernard Palissy 

 has been described 

 as a man "obscurely 

 great amongst the 

 prominently little." 

 - In 1563 appeared 

 his most important 

 work, the Recepte 

 veritable.^ We find 

 him also employed as 

 a garden designer at 

 Ecouen, Chaulnes, 

 and Nesle in 

 Picardy, Reux in 

 Normandy, Madrid 

 in the environs of 

 Paris, and the 

 Chateau de Chen- 

 onceaux. 



The Recepte 

 veritable is essen- 

 tially original and full of charm ; it gives very important information of the' 

 garden design of this period and is written, as he says in the preface, " that 

 the simple may be instructed by the wise, in order that we may none of us 



^ Recepte veritable far laquelle tons les hommes de la France pourrent apprendre d augmenter 

 leurs Tresors avec le Dessin d'un jardin delectable et Utile. Rochelle, 410., 1563. 



BERNARD PALISSY. 



