Byzantine gardens

Byzantine culture

Aristocracy and bureaucracy Army Art Architecture Calendar Coinage Cuisine Dance Diplomacy Dress Economy Gardens Law Literature Medicine Music Navy People Science

The city of Byzantium in the Byzantine Empire occupies an important place in the history of garden design between eras and cultures (c. 4th century - 10th century CE). The city, later renamed Constantinople and the present day Istanbul, was capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and survived for a thousand years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The gardens of Byzantium were, however, mostly destroyed after the 15th-century Turkish conquest of the city.

Design

Byzantine gardens were based largely on Roman ideas emphasizing elaborate mosaic designs, a typical classical feature of formally arrayed trees and built elements such as fountains and small shrines. These gradually grew to become more elaborate as time passed. Byzantine gardens have influenced Islamic gardens and particularly moorish gardens (because Spain was before a Byzantine province, Hispania Baetica.

Study

Little else is known about Byzantine gardens, however, and very few references, let alone entire treatises, exist on the subject. The Byzantines, like their Greco-Roman predecessors, attached great importance to such matters of aesthetics. However, ancient Greek gardens and Roman gardens were more developed and documented.

A modern bronze copy of a Greek garden statue, the type of which survived well into Late Antiquity.

Later Greek rule

During the last 250 years of Greek rule, ending in 1453, conditions drastically curtailed the tradition, which stretched back to Hellenistic times, of building luxurious villas, mostly outside the cities, with pleasing gardens, as appear in mosaics and frescoes or are recorded in texts. This period seems to have been less thoroughly investigated than have most earlier periods, and a concentration on it should produce a more coherent picture than another attempt to cover the whole span of Byzantine history.

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Marie-Luise Gothein: History of Byzantine Gardens

Horticulture and gardening

Gardening	History Design computer-aided Garden tool Green wall Arboretum Allotment Butterfly Community Forest French intensive Guerrilla Garden Historic conservation Landscape Native Parterre Raised bed Square foot Sustainable Xeriscaping

Types of gardens	Back Biblical Botanical Butterfly zoo Byzantine Color Container Cottage Cactus Chinese Dutch English Fernery Floating Flower French formal landscape Renaissance Front Greek Greenhouse Hanging Islamic Italian Japanese Kitchen Knot Korean Market Mary Mughal Orangery Orchard Persian Bagh Charbagh Paradise Philosophical Pleasure Roman Spanish Rain Rose Roof Sacred Sculpture Sensory Shade Therapeutic Trial Tropical Victory Vineyard Walled Water Wildlife Winter Zen Zoological

Horticulture	Agriculture stock-free sustainable urban Arboriculture Botany Companion planting Crop most valuable Flora Floriculture Fruticulture Genetically modified tree Hydroculture Indigenous Intercropping Landscape architecture Oenology Olericulture Plant breeding propagation Pomology Postharvest physiology Tropical Urban agriculture horticulture forestry reforestation Viticulture

Organic	Biodynamic agriculture List of organic gardening and farming topics Vegan organic gardening

Plant protection	Fungicide Herbicide Index of pesticide articles List of fungicides Pesticide Plant disease forecasting Weed control

Agriculture and Agronomy portal Gardening portal Commons

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, February 06, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.