The formal garden

by Mark Laird

The Idea of the formal garden evokes clear and specific images: the Renaissance symmetry of the Villa Lante; the knots and mazes of Hampton Court; the immense vistas of Versailles. But how well founded are our preconceptions in fact? In this major study new research combines with glorious illustrations to demonstrate for the first time how historic gardens were originally conceived, and how they have changed. The gardens today are seen to be a fascinating overlay through time of changing ideas and attitudes. The evidence unearthed suggests that formality is the central and enduring tradition of Western garden design, that it was still vigorously alive in the eighteenth century, and that its relation to the landscape garden has been consistently misjudged. In some gardens, the original planting has disappeared, while others have been meticulously restored; indeed, traditional categories prove insufficient to describe them, for a "Baroque" garden may actually be a re-interpretation from