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GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 
OF AMERICA 
Devoted to the Science of Floriculture and Horticulture 
Vol. xx. 
MARCH, 1916. 
IIUIIIIIIIIIIilllllllllllBIIIIM 
No. 3. 
The Early Masters of the Garden Art 
By L. P. Jensen, Missouri. 
"God Almightie first Planted a Garden, ami, indeed, it is the Purest of Human 
pleasures. It is the Greatest Refreshment to the Spirits of Man; Without 
zehich Buildings and Palaces are but Grosse Handy-Mirks. And a Man shall 
ever see, that when Ages grow to Civilily and Elegancie, Men come to 
Build Stately, sooner than to Garden Finely. As if Gardening were the 
Greater Perfection." — Sir Francis Bacon. 
A 
B( JUT twenty years ago, ] began gradually to col- 
lect a library of earlv works pertaining to garden- 
ing, or those treating on gardening as an art of 
design. To-day, my library contains a fairly complete 
collection of early authors on this subject, published since 
the appearance of the well-known essay "On Gardens," 
by Sir Francis Bacon in 1625. 
These volumes contain many valuable and interesting 
passages, which the gardener of to-day might study with 
profit. The history of gardening, is, as the history of 
architecture and other arts, the history of human prog- 
ress. The first gardens were probably made to supply a 
primitive want, small enclosures, containing, as Lord YVal- 
pole said, "a gooseberry-bush and a cabbage," and gar- 
dens for the growing of medicinal herbs. 
It is not the intention of the writer to touch the early 
development of the ancient gardens, such as described by 
Xenophon, Diodorus, Siculus, Strabo, Quintus Curtius, 
Plinius, Horace and other earlv Grecian and Roman au- 
thors, but to present a brief sketch of the life and works 
of some of the early workers ami writers, whose work 
may be said to have been important factors in the develop- 
ment of the principles considered as essentials in the prac- 
tice of the art of gardening to-day. 
After the fall of the Roman Empire, little is known of 
gardening up to the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
when it was revived by the Medici family of Rome. 
These gardens were of formal design, and served as 
models for the noted and artistic formal gardens of the 
Italian Renaissance. At the end of the sixteenth century 
the French began to copy the gardens of the Italians, and 
during the reign of Louis XIV, 1651-1715, Andre Le 
Notre settled the French style in the laying out of grounds 
and wardens. Hirchfeld, in his "Theorie der Garten- 
kunst," volume I, 177'', said: "If Le Xotre had been 
born under any other monarch than that of Louis XIV, 
his taste would, in all probability, never have spread nor 
his name been known to posterity. But that age in which 
a feeling for the fine arts had begun to awaken in men's 
minds, together with the personal character of this mon- 
arch was favorable to pomp and brilliancy. The na- 
tion and the court wished to be dazzled and enchanted by 
novelty and singularity, and though there certainly was 
nothing in Le Xotre's manner that had not before been 
displayed in Italy, and with the exception of parterres, 
even by the Romans, yet the grand scale and sumptuous 
expense of the plans surpassed everything before seen in 
France, and produced precisely the desired end. His long 
clipped alleys, triumphal arches, richly decorated and 
wrought parterres, his fountains and cascades with their 
strange ornaments, his groves full of architecture and gilt 
trellisses, his profusion of statues, all these wonders 
springing up in a desert looking, open country, dazzled 
and enchanted every class of observers." 
The principal works of Le Notre are: Versailles, which 
cost nearly 200 million francs ; Trianon, St. Cloud, Chan- 
tilly, and the celebrated terrace of Saint Germains. Very 
little is known of the life of Le Xotre. He visited Rome 
and is said to have been in England, but this is very doubt- 
ful, lie was born in 1613 and died in 1700. His style 
was adopted by all of Europe. 
At this period the art of gardening seems to have cen- 
tered exclusivelv on formal arrangement and this con- 
tinued for more than half a century. 
Sir Francis Bacon's little essay "(hi Gardens" is cred- 
ited with having shed the first ray of light on the horizon 
of the naturalistic gardening. Bacon proposed winter or 
evergreen gardens, and that part of the garden be given 
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