Storia dei giardini

Questa voce si riferisce alla storia del giardinaggio ornamoentale, inteso come arricchimento per la vita civilizzata, testimonianza di stile, dimostrazione di benessere o anche veicolo di concetti filosofici.

Sebbene la coltivazione delle piante per nutrirsi risalga e epoche pre-storiche, le prime testimonianze dell'esistenza di giardini ornamentali sono da considerarsi le pitture murali egiziane del 1500 AC; rappresentano laghetti ricoperti di ninfee loto e circondati da file di alberi di acacia e di palme. Anticamente ci sono testimonianze anche di una tradizione di giardinaggio presso i persiani: si trovano citazioni di un "giardino del paradiso" appartenuto a Dario il Grande e i Giardini Pensili di Babilonia erano considerati una delle Sette Meraviglie del Mondo.

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Persian influences extended to post-Alexander's Greece: around 350 BC there were gardens at the Academy of Athens, and Theophrastus, who wrote on botany, was supposed to have inherited a garden from Aristotle. Epicurus also had a garden where he walked and taught, and bequeathed it to Hermarchus of Mytilene. Alciphron also mentions private gardens.

The most influential ancient gardens in the western world were the Ptolemy's gardens at Alexandria and the gardening tradition brought to Rome by Lucullus. Wall paintings in Pompeii attest to elaborate development later, and the wealthiest of Romans built enormous gardens, many of whose ruins are still to be seen, such as at Hadrian's Villa.

Byzantium and Moorish Spain kept garden traditions alive after the 4th century. By this time a separate gardening tradition had arisen in China, which was transmitted to Japan, where it developed into aristocratic miniature landscapes centered on ponds and separately into the severe Zen gardens of temples.

In Europe, gardening revived in Languedoc and the Ile-de-France in the 13th century, and in the Italian villa gardens of the early Renaissance. French parterres developed at the end of the 16th century and reached high development under Andre le Notre. English landscape gardens opened a new perspective in the 18th century. The 19th century saw a welter of historical revivals and Romantic cottage-inspired gardening.

20th century gardening expanded into city planning.

(this introductory capsule of world gardening needs improvement)

• Hanging Gardens of Babylon

• Assyrian/Persian paradise garden or enclosed hunting-orchard.

• Royalty, most likely that found in Egypt, was probably also very instrumental in the development of the garden, much as royalty and the privileged classes throughout the centuries have continued to influence the design and actualization of gardens.

• Hellenistic gardens.
• Roman gardens had many characteristics in common with contemporary gardens. The garden was a place of peace and tranquility, a refuge from urban life, and was invested with religious and symbolic meanings. Ornamental horticulture became highly developed during the development of Roman civilisation. The administrators of the Roman Empire (circa 100 BCE - 500 AD) actively exchanged information on agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, hydraulics, and botany. Seeds and plants were widely shared. The Gardens of Lucullus (Horti Lucullani) on the Pincian Hill on the edge of Rome introduced the Persian garden to Europe, about 60 BCE.

• Byzantine/Turkish gardens.
• The developed Persian garden, which evolved into the Mughal gardens of India.
• Islamic Spanish gardens.

• 'Hill-and-Pond' gardens of China and Japan.
• Zen garden of Japan.

The leading European historian and designer of gardens, Gerard Ciolek (1909-1966), analysed and discussed several hundreds of notable parks and gardens of Poland (Ciolek 1954, 1978). These include:

• Giardini medievali
  • Kartuzy, Mogila and Oliwa

• Giardini rinascimentali
  • Branice, Jedrzejow, Lobzow, Lowicz, Wawel Castle (Krakow), Wisnicz, Wola Justowska, and Zamosc.

• Giardini barocchi (ca. 17mo secolo)
  • Krasiczyn, Krzyztopor, Nieborow, Royal Castle (Warszawa), Rzeszow, Tyniec, Wawel Castle (Krakow), Wilanow (Warszawa), Wisniowiec, Wysock, and Zwierzyniec (Krakow).

• Giardini barocchi (ca. 18mo secolo)
  • Bialystok, Brühl Park (Warszawa), Lancut, Nieborow, Saski Park (Warszawa) Oliwa, Otwock Wielki, Pulawy, Radzyn Podlaski, Royal Castle (Warszawa), Sokolka, Wilanow (Warszawa), Ujazdow (Warszawa).

• Landscape (18/19th c.) gardens
  • Alexandria (Siedlce), Arkadia, Krolikarnia (Warszawa), Lancut, Lazienki (Warszawa), Mokotow (Warszawa), Montelupi Park (Krakow), Powazki (Warszawa), Pulawy, Saski Park (Warszawa), and Szczekociny.

• Giardini romantici (ca. 19mo secolo)
  • Jablonna, Krasiczyn, Lancut, Modlnica, Natolin, Planty Park (Krakow), Pulawy, Saski Park (Lublin), and Wilanow (Warszawa).

• Medieval enclosed garden of northern Europe Hortus inclusus.
• The Italian Renaissance inspired a revolution in gardening. Renaissance gardens were full of scenes from ancient mythology and other learned allusions. Water during this time was especially symbolic: it was associated with fertility and the abundance of nature.

• Terraced Italian garden of the Renaissance.

• Baroque French gardens of Andre le Notre and followers.

• English Landscape garden and its imitators, called 'English gardens.'

The 'Gardenesque' style of English garden design evolved during the 1820's from Humphrey Repton's Picturesque or 'Mixed' style, largely under the impetus of J. C. Loudon, who invented the term.

In a Gardenesque plan, all the trees, shrubs and other plants are positioned and managed in such a way that the character of each plant can be displayed to its full potential. With the spread of botany as a suitable avocation for the enlightened, the Gardenesque tended to emphasize botanical curiosities and a collector's approach. New plant material that would have seemed bizarre and alien in earlier gardening found settings: Pampas grass from Argentina and Monkey-puzzle trees. Winding paths linked scattered plantings. The Gardenesque approach involved the creation of small-scale landscapes, dotted with features and vignettes, to promote beauty of detail, variety and mystery, sometimes to the detriment of coherence. Artificial mounds helped to stage groupings of shrubs, and island beds became prominent features.

The books of William Robinson describing his own "wild" gardening at Gravetye Manor, Sussex, and the sentimental picture of a rosy, idealized "cottage garden" of the kind pictured by Kate Greenaway, which had scarcely existed historically, both influenced the development of the mixed herbaceous borders that were advocated by Gertrude Jekyll from the 1890s. Her plantings, which mixed shrubs with perennial and annual plants and bulbs in deep beds within more formal structures of terraces and stairs designed by Edwin Lutyens, set the model for high-style, high-maintenance gardening until the Second World War. Vita Sackville-West's garden at Sissinghurst Castle, Kent is the most famous and influential garden of this last blossoming of romantic style, publicized by the gardener's own gardening column in The Observer. In the last quarter of the 20th century, less structured Wildlife gardening emphasized the ecological framework of similar gardens using native plants.

• Romantic idealized English cottage garden.
• Contemporary gardens.

The following names, roughly in historical order, made contributions that affected the history of gardens, whether as botanist explorers, designers, garden-makers, or writers. Further information on them will be found under their individual entries.

• Theophrastus
• Lucullus
• Tiberius
• Pliny
• John Tradescant
• Carolus Clusius
• Andre le Notre
• William Kent
• Lancelot "Capability" Brown
• A. J. Downing
• Frederick Law Olmsted
• Gertrude Jekyll
• Vita Sackville-West
• Russell Page
• Luis Barragan

• Alhambra
• Bomarzo
• Central Park
• Chateau Fontainebleau
• Chatsworth
• Dumbarton Oaks
• Ermenonville
• Fountains Abbey
• Giverny
• Hadrian's Villa
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Het Loo
• Hidcote
• Marly-le-Roi
• Sissinghurst Castle
• Stourhead
• Stowe
• Vaux-le-Vicomte
• Villa d'Este
• Chateau Villandry
• Versailles
• Peterhof
• Pavlovsk
• Kuskovo
• Muskauer Park

• J. S. Berrall. The Garden: An Illustrated History
• Ciolek, Gerard. "Ogrody polskie" [Gardens of Poland]. Revised edition of the 1954 publication under the same title, updated and expanded by Janusz Bogdanowski. Warszawa: Arkady (1978).
• Carroll, Maureen. "Earthly Paradises: Ancient Gardens in History and Archaeology" (London, British Museum Press 2003)
• E. Hyams. A History of Gardens and Gardening (1971)

• Gardening History Timeline
• History of garden design in Britain, Europe and America is a strong section in this wide-ranging UK-based garden site.
• Horticulture in ancient Egypt