The scientific imagination and the Baroque garden

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to establish connections between the style of gardens and the scientific movement in 17th-century Europe. This raises problems of terminology. What exactly is a Baroque garden? And what is the scientific imagination? The second question is one of method, and it can best be answered in my conclusion, once the method has been seen at work. The first, on the contrary, requires an immediate answer because it sets time limits to the field we are going to explore: the Baroque garden is a type of garden whose origin can be traced to the Renaissance; Italo-French by birth, it began to develop in the early 17th century, giving rise to such creations as Villa Aldobrandini and Villa Garzoni in Italy, Maisons, Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles in France, Het Loo in Holland and the Fountain Garden at Hampton Court Palace in England. Although its supremacy was shaken when Palladianism and the Picturesque emerged in Britain, the Baroque lingered on almost everywhere in Europe, taking on Rococco aspects that enabled it to survive until the last decades of the 18th century.1