Landscape Gardening: The First Gardens

The change in attitude toward nature began with landscape gardening. Initially, the Church opposed the creation of gardens. However, eventually it decided that they could be regarded as symbols of the Garden of Eden, or a foretaste of Paradise.

The term paradise is a Persian word meaning "a walled-enclosure," suggesting that gardens are a legacy of the Crusades.

The wall around the garden is the beginning of a civilizing - or taming - of wild nature.




Unknown, The Garden of Nature, c. 1410, From Der Liebe Schach