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The pleasure garden
The pleasure garden book, which is relatively short as compared with the other books in the Liber ruralium commodorum, is between the book on meadows and groves and the book on animal husbandry. In this way, it bridges the gap between the cultivation of plants and the raising of livestock, which was not considered by all experts to be a necessary component of agriculture.40 The pleasure garden itself is not normally included in books on rural life, but Crescenzi so integrates it into his work that he already mentions it in Book One, when describing how the interior of the estate is to be laid out and arranged. Located near the main house should be a place with vines and fruit trees reserved for the master that is ‘secured from the voracious greed of the rustics’. ‘In this place’, he writes, ‘will be made a pleasant garden [loco amoenum] and a Dominican herb garden, and a bee hive, and a columbarium, and an enclosure for young hares, which will serve a select community’.41 Although the pleasure garden forms an integral part of the estate and the treatise, in the Preface to Book Eight Crescenzi reminds the reader that it is in fact quite different. While the previous books were concerned with how trees and herbs are useful to the human body, this one focuses on how plants and herbs can give pleasure to the mind, which, in turn, affects bodily health. Despite the shifted focus from the body to the mind, the eighth book frequently addresses the books that surround it to show how the garden delights can be created. Just as the mind affects the body and vice versa, so too the pleasure garden and the estate are interdependent; the treatise describes a physical and economic structure in which the pleasure garden can exist, while the pleasure garden provides a mental and aesthetic framework that can be applied to the estate as whole. Thus, the pleasure garden book could be viewed as a microcosmic justification for the entire estate and vice versa: pleasure sanctifies utility and utility makes pleasure possible.
The pleasure garden
The pleasure garden book, which is relatively short as compared with the other books in the Liber ruralium commodorum, is between the book on meadows and groves and the book on animal husbandry. In this way, it bridges the gap between the cultivation of plants and the raising of livestock, which was not considered by all experts to be a necessary component of agriculture.40 The pleasure garden itself is not normally included in books on rural life, but Crescenzi so integrates it into his work that he already mentions it in Book One, when describing how the interior of the estate is to be laid out and arranged. Located near the main house should be a place with vines and fruit trees reserved for the master that is ‘secured from the voracious greed of the rustics’. ‘In this place’, he writes, ‘will be made a pleasant garden [loco amoenum] and a Dominican herb garden, and a bee hive, and a columbarium, and an enclosure for young hares, which will serve a select community’.41 Although the pleasure garden forms an integral part of the estate and the treatise, in the Preface to Book Eight Crescenzi reminds the reader that it is in fact quite different. While the previous books were concerned with how trees and herbs are useful to the human body, this one focuses on how plants and herbs can give pleasure to the mind, which, in turn, affects bodily health. Despite the shifted focus from the body to the mind, the eighth book frequently addresses the books that surround it to show how the garden delights can be created. Just as the mind affects the body and vice versa, so too the pleasure garden and the estate are interdependent; the treatise describes a physical and economic structure in which the pleasure garden can exist, while the pleasure garden provides a mental and aesthetic framework that can be applied to the estate as whole. Thus, the pleasure garden book could be viewed as a microcosmic justification for the entire estate and vice versa: pleasure sanctifies utility and utility makes pleasure possible.
The pleasure garden
Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes ; 22 ; 117-127
2002-06-01
11 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
Unknown
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