The Art, Architecture and Gardens of Italy

POLITICS AND THE GARDEN

created for educational purposes by
Cynthia Venables
not to be copied
The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden
fresco Italian Early Renaissance
Masaccio 1425
 Political Philosophies In Art, Architecture
and Gardens

Oath of the
Horatii
Jacques-Louis
David, 1784
Oil on
canvas
Louvre, Paris

Italian History inspires revolution from afar

Neo Classicism versus Romanticism
1700-1850
Rational vs Experiental

Dante and Virgil in

Hell
Eugène Delacroix
1822
Oil on canvas
Louvre, Paris
political philosophies dual it out in art, architecture and gardens
POLITICS AND ART
The House of Medici 1300 ~ 1743

Uffizi Pitti

Anna Maria Luisa ~ Patto di Famiglia 1737 willing all the

personal property of the Medici to the Tuscan state, provided
that nothing was ever removed from Florence
POLITICS AND THE GARDEN
The Medici in Florence
A Dynasty

Villa Medici Fiesole

 POLITICS AND THE GARDEN
the garden as a portrait of the man and society

and a passion for collecting

the garden as a place of learning, culture
and the expansive mind
Medici Villa at Castello 1477 ~ Giardinao Segreto
Italian Garden lunettes painted c.
Painting 1599 by Giusto
! Uten

~Linear
Perspective
& the expansive mind
A Renaissance
View ~
 Italian Garden Painting
~Linear Perspective & A Renaissance View ~
lunettes painted c.
1599
by Giusto
Uten
 POLITICS AND THE GARDEN

Eleonora di Toledo
Cosimo I Grand Duke of Tuscany
Duchess of Tuscany
(1519-1574)
(1522– 1562
Palazzo Vecchio

Palazzo Vecchio, the City Hall, home of

Florentine Democracy since 13th C.
Home of the first Duke of Tuscany 1530
Palazzo Pitti 1458 Medici from 1539
 POLITICS AND THE GARDEN

Pitti Palace ~ Boboli Gardens

Royal Status Educated Visionary
Good Government
Nympheum
owner of all that he surveyed
 The Collection
&
The Power of the
Ruler

Fontana del Bacchino

(Little Bacchus)
Valerio Cioli
1561
 Materia Medica
of Dioscorides

Dioscorides receives a
mandrake root
Vienna Dioscurides
manuscript
early sixth century CE
!
!
!
!
Naples Dioscurides
mandrake
seventh century CE
 Herbals

Early Italian manuscript

herbal,
c. 1500. Plants illustrated
are Appolinaris,
Chamomeleon, Sliatriceo
and Narcissus
 Herbals

incunable

"De Anima”,
c 1485.

Block Print

printed not
handwritten
 Materia Medica of Dioscorides
Discorsi
Pietro Andrea Mattioli 1501 – 1577
received his MD at the University of Padua in 1523

Woodblock for a ca. 1561 printing of Discorsi

The Age of Discovery pomi d’oro, or "golden apple"
 POLITICS AND DISCOVERY

Discovery and Humanism

Forces of Revolution and Change

 Discovery and Collecting

pomi d’oro, or "golden apple” 1548 Medici Garden

to be sought only for their beauty

 COLLECTING AND THE GARDEN

Discovery Cataloguing
Experiental Rational

The Orto Botanico di Padova Founded in 1545 by

the Venetian Republic & Prospero Alpini'
 Prospero Alpini's De Plantis Exoticis
travelled to Egypt in 1580

De Medicina Egyptiorum (Venice, 1591) is said to contain

the first account of the coffee plant published in Europe.
 POLITICS AND THE GARDEN
Discovery Collecting

Orto botanico di Pisa 1544 Giardino dei Semplici, Firenze 1545,

founded by Cosimo I de' Medici,
Grand Duke of Tuscany,
amaryllis
 POWER
AND
THE GARDEN

Botanical Art
for the Medici

Jacopo Ligozzi
(1547–1627)

ananas sativus
gouache on paper
Jacopo Ligozzi (1547–1627)

agave americana

Botanical Art
for the Medici
 Mandrake
1560
Jacopo Ligozzi,
Atropa
Mandragora
!
Mixed media,
Cabinet of
Drawings and
Prints
Uffizi,
Florence
Jacopo Ligozzi
1547–1627
served
Francesco I,
Ferdinando I,
Cosimo II and
Ferdinando II,
Grand Dukes of
Tuscany
Camilla Martelli,
c. 1580
the second wife
of
the Grand Duke
of Tuscany
Cosimo I
de' Medici
!
Jacopo Ligozzi
Pietra dura

Medici
Grand Duke
Ferdinando I of
Tuscany founded
the Galleria
di’Lavori
1588
Galileo Galilei Linceo ~ compound microscope ~1625
scientific revolution

Francesco
Stelluti
1625

"Take care of small things if you want to obtain the greatest

results" (minima cura si maxima vis)
 Accademia dei Lincei Rome 1603
-1633

with lynx like eyes, examining those things which

manifest themselves, so that having observed them, he
may zealously use them"
Giovanna Garzoni (1600-1670) painter to the Medici Court
 Giuseppe Arcimboldo
portrait depicting Rudolf II,
Holy Roman Emperor painted
as Vertumnus, the Roman God
of the seasons, c. 1590-1
 Daniel Froeschl
Sunflower
(Helianthus annuus)
University of Pisa
&
Medici Court Painter
1604-1613
 Bartolomeo
Bimbi

Sunflower
1721
Oil on canvas, 101 x 78 cm
Villa Medici, Poggio a Caiano
 POLITICS AND THE GARDEN

Bartolomeo Bimbi The Pumpkin, 1712

Oil on canvas Museo Botanico, Florence
 a subject worthy of painting
Mario Nuzzi
1603 -73

painting as decoration in the home

 !
Caterina de' Medici
1519 – 1589
Queen of France 1547 - 1559,
as the wife of King Henry II
and later regent to their 3 sons
royal entry of Henry II in Rouen, 1 October 1550
 Marie de' Medici
1575 – 1642
was queen consort of
Henrt IV of France
from 1610 and regent
to Louis XIII
 POLITICS AND THE GARDEN
Italian Garden Influence on French Gardens

Palais du Luxembourg~ "Palais Médicis” 1615–1645

Limonaia
1617 Orangerie
 Louis XIV 1638 -1715
Palazzo Pitti Florence 1530
Royal Palace of Versailles
The first phase of the expansion c. 1661–1678
 Bust of Louis
XIV by Bernini
1665
The Power of the Orange
ORDER

flat terrain
 DISORDER
sculpted bosquet

The baths of Apollo

 Italian Painting Influence on French
Painting ~ Classicism ~

Jupiter and Antiope (Pardo Venus) Titian c. 1560

Oil on canvas, 196 x 385 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
 Painters from foreign lands
interpret
the Italian Landscape
CLASSICISM

Paul Brill
Self-portrait,
1595-1600.

landscapes deemed fit for serious painting

Nicolas Poussin 1594 – 1665 Classical French Baroque

Pastorale landscape, 1650

 Order, clarity and simplicity

the ideal landscape ~ Italy as a garden

the poetry of classicism
 !
Claude LorraineThe Roman Campagna 1639

'picturesque'
Claude Lorraine Sunrise 1646–47

painting as decoration in the home

picturesque landscape ~ gradations of tone
Claude
glass
 Grand Tour

Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of

Sunderland (1640–1702),
Carlo Maratti

in search of art, culture

and the roots of
Western civilization
 The Enlightenment 1715-1789

progress, reason, tolerance and liberty

 Neo-Classicism and Romanticism

Giovanni Paolo Panini

1691 –1765
vedutisti
Giovanni Battista Piranesi 1720 - 1778

Neo-Classicism and Romanticism

 Pompeii
Neo-Classicism and Romanticism
 Pompeii
Neo- Classicism
Pompei ~ Romanticism
La Rotunda Palladio 1592 Veneto Italy
Influence of Palladio on English architecture and gardens
Chiswick House 1729 Lord Burlington Chiswick England
La Rotunda
Italian Art, Architecture and Gardens

the far reaching influence

 Neo-Classicism ~ reason and of human nature

The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition

to absolute monarchy.
 Romantic English
Landscape Park

Stourhead
evoking the
journey of
Aeneas's descent
in to the
underworld

The gardens were

designed by Henry Hoare
II and laid out between
1741 and 1780
 For the first time the form of a garden was inspired
not by architecture, but by an idealized version of nature

The gardensEnglish
were designed by Stourhead House,
Palladianism:
Henry Hoare
East II and laid
facade, outon Palladio's Villa Emo.
based
between 1741 and 1780
Neo-Classicism and Romanticism
and Harmony in the Garden
Political Philosophies dual it out in the garden
Caserta
 The Palace of Caserta

1752 for Charles VII of Naples

 The Bourbons ~ Enlightened Monarchs

Reason Order Balance

the Royal Palace of Caserta is the largest royal

residence in the worldwith over 2 million m and
covering an area of about 47,000 m
The Diana and Actaeon Fountain at the feet of
the Grand Cascade.
Pompeii Neo- Classicism
The Bourbons ~ Enlightened Monarchs
Sir Wm.Hamilton 1764-98 Envoy Extraordinary to
the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
 Emma as a Bacchante
by George Romney, 1785
Nelson's fleet arrived in the Bay of Naples after
defeating the French Fleet at the Battle of the
Nile in August 1798 and Nelson was a guest of
the Hamiltons
 The Enlightenment 1715-1789

progress, reason, tolerance and liberty

 The Enlightenment 1715-1789

progress, reason, tolerance and liberty

Oath of the Horatii Jacques-Louis David, 1784
Oil on canvas Louvre, Paris
 Neo-Classicism and Revolution 1789-99

Oath of the Horatii Jacques-Louis David, 1784

Oil on canvas Louvre, Paris
 Neo-Classicism

The Emperor Napoleon in His

Study at the Tuileries,
by Jacques-Louis David, 1812
 Romanticism

Napoleon Crossing
the Alps
Jacques-Louis David
1801 and 1805.
 Canova - Classicism, Romanticism and
Neo-Classicism

Napoleon as Mars
the Peacemaker
1811 bronze copy of
the statue in the
courtyard of Palazzo
Brera, Milan
Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix
1805-1808
Galleria Borghese, Rome
Lago di Como
 The English Landscape
Garden was the first British
Visual Art to have a major
influence on public taste in
the form of parks and
gardens which appeared
Villa Monestario * world-wide in the
Villa Carlotta *
* Villa Melzi 19th century

Lago di Como
* Villa Melzi
* Villa Carlota
* Villa Monestario
 Villa Melzi
built between
1808 and 1810 by
Francesco Melzi d'Eril ,
Duke of Lodi and Vice
President of
the Italian Republic with
Napoleon
Villa Melzi 1808-10
Villa Carlotta
built
1690-1743
by the Clerici
Giardino
all'inglese
Classic Italian Garden Style

Villa Ciprese Villa Monestario

Varenna Lago di Como
 Lucca

Villa Reale di Marlia

from 1517
Villa Reale di Marlia
from 1517
Garden of the Villa Reale di Marlia

Elisa Baciocchi Bonaparte