Renaissance Era Research Paper

Landscape Architecture and The Renaissance Era.

Renaissance was known for a period of cultural growth that began in Italy lasting approximately from 1400 to 1600. The Italian word for Renaissance “rinascimento” means “revival”, the french word means “re-birth”. Artists, Scholars, Philosophers believed they were participating in the rebirth of the ideals, values and mindset of their generation. Little as they know it would be the turning point of an era, that would spread throughout Europe. It was a period where changes were made through every area including Landscape architecture which is the subject we will put more emphasis on and in order to understand the meaning of this period and was

They broke away from the restrictions of the byzantine art and throughout the century studied the natural world in order to perfect their understanding of such object as anatomy and perspective. Susan Wright wrote in her book The Renaissance: Masterpieces of art and Architecture p21-23 : “Though politically Florence was considered to be democracy , the medici family dominated the city [...] Like the aristocracy of Milan , Ferrara and Mutua the Medici did not rule by the strength of armies but by their financial power. [...] The medici family was so powerful that the popes relied on their support to maintain the ascendancy of the church [...] Lorenzo the magnificent , grandson of Cosimo de Medici revitalized the academy of art instruction which influenced centuries of European artists. Since the artisan guild in Florence as a loose business association rather than a strict union , the artists of the Early Renaissance had unprecedented freedom to experiment with new forms of expressions”. Landscape Architecture was developed by stage from the medieval era when it became safe for to live in a villa instead of fortified castle. Spaces became available for the design of ornamental gardens. Women could use them safely and

Like Renaissance art and architecture discovered by those classical models . They were inspired by the romans gardens from letters and manuscripts which given detailed description of roman villas. When it comes to landscape Architecture the most influential name for this subject at this time would be Leon Battista Alberti. Batista was a poet, priest, architect linguist but one of his remarkable work was his principles of the renaissance garden. With his work and analysis he would argued that a garden should be a place to be looked from the house a “little heaven”. Alberti wrote “ The construction will give pleasure to the eyes even when they leave the city[...] it would be a site to to seduce and welcome new arrivals”. Geometry was also an important topic it was seen as a sign of divine order, garden were divided in compartiment that were named to create sequence of spaces but still unified as a