Gardens of Renaissance Europe and the Islamic Empires

Encounters and Confluences

Mohammad Gharipour

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780271080697
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: History of Architecture

The cross-cultural exchange of ideas that flourished in the Mediterranean during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries profoundly affected European and Islamic society. Gardens of Renaissance Europe and the Islamic Empires considers the role and place of gardens and landscapes in the broader context of the information sharing that took place among Europeans and Islamic empires in Turkey, Persia, and India.

In illustrating commonalities in the design, development, and people's perceptions of gardens and nature in both regions, this volume substantiates important parallels in the revolutionary advancements in landscape architecture that took place during the era. The contributors explain how the exchange of gardeners as well as horticultural and irrigation techniques influenced design traditions in the two cultures; examine concurrent shifts in garden and urban landscape design, such as the move toward more public functionality; and explore the mutually influential effects of politics, economics, and culture on composed outdoor space. In doing so, they shed light on the complexity of cultures and politics during the Renaissance.

A thoughtfully composed look at the effects of cross-cultural exchange on garden design during a pivotal time in world history, this thought-provoking book points to new areas in inquiry about the influences, confluences, and connections between European and Islamic garden traditions.

In addition to the editor, the contributors include Cristina Castel-Branco, Paula Henderson, Simone M. Kaiser, Ebba Koch, Christopher Pastore, Laurent Paya, D. Fairchild Ruggles, Jill Sinclair, and Anatole Tchikine.

Table of contents

• COVER front
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface: The Renaissance in the Global Context
• Notes to Preface
• Chapter 1: Prologue: Paradigm Problems: Islamic Gardens in an Expanding Field
• Notes to Chapter 1
• Chapter 2: Embracing the Other: Venetian Garden Design, Early Modern Travelers, and the Islamic Landscape
• Notes to Chapter 2
• Chapter 3: Staging the Civilizing Elements in the Gardens of Rome and Istanbul
• Notes to Chapter 3
• Chapter 4: The Art of Garden Design in France: Ottoman Influences at the Time of the "Scandalous Alliance"?
• Notes to Chapter 4
• Chapter 5: “For Beauty, and Air, and View”: Contemplating the Wider Surroundings of Sixteenth-Century Mughal and European Gardens
• Notes to Chapter 5
• Chapter 6: The Gardens of Safavid Isfahan and Renaissance Italy: A New Urban Landscape?
• Notes to Chapter 6
• Chapter 7: “Elysian Fields Such as the Poets Dreamed Of”: The Mughal Garden in the Early Stuart Mind
• Notes to Chapter 7
• Chapter 8: Garden Encounters: Portugal and India in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
• Notes to Chapter 8
• Chapter 9: Carved Pools, Rock-Cut Elephants, Inscriptions, and Tree Columns: Mughal Landscape Art as Imperial Expression and Its Analogies to the Renaissance Garden
• Notes to Chapter 9
• Chapter 10: Epilogue: Italian Renaissance Gardens and the Middle East: Cultural Exchanges in the Longue Duree
• Notes to Chapter 10
• Contributors
• Index