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The Baroque garden was a style of garden based upon symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. The style originated in the late-16th century in Italy, in the gardens of the Vatican and the Villa Borghese gardens in Rome and in the gardens of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, and then spread to France, where it became known as the jardin à la française or French formal garden. The grandest example is found in the Gardens of Versailles designed during the 17th century by the landscape architect André Le Nôtre for Louis XIV. In the 18th century, in imitation of Versailles, very ornate Baroque gardens were built in other parts of Europe, including Germany, Austria, Spain, and in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In the mid-18th century the style was replaced by the less geometric and more natural English landscape garden.
Over time, the style evolved, and became more natural. and "secret gardens" enclosed by trees appeared, to illustrate the literary ideals of Arcadia and other popular stories of the time; these were usually placed in the outer corners of the garden, to give suitable places for quiet reading or conversation.Kluckert, "Les Jardins Baroques", in L'Art Baroque – Architecture- Sculpture- Peinture (2015), p. 152
The Cortile del Belvedere or courtyard of the Belvedere at the Vatican City in Rome was one of the first gardens in Europe which adopted these geometric principles, and was a model for many later Baroque gardens. It was begun in 1506, constructed for Pope Julius II, in connected his residence on a nearby hillside with the Vatican. The garden was three hundred meters long, filled with orderly flower beds and gardens geometrically divided by alleys and hedges, with fountains at the intersections of the paths. It was finished in 1565 by Pirro Ligorio. The original garden was drastically modified by the later addition of the Vatican Library.
The same architect who completed the Cortile del Belvedere, Pirro Ligorio, was commissioned in the same year to design an even more ambitious garden, Villa d'Este, for Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este (1509–1572). This garden was designed on a steep hillside, which could be viewed from the Villa above. The garden was composed of five terraces, elaborately planted in geometric forms and connected with ramps and stairways. Like many Baroque gardens, it was best viewed from above and from a distance, to get the full effect.Kluckert (2015) p. 152
This architectural form for gardens continued to dominate in Italy until the construction of Villa Borghese gardens in Rome by Cardinal Scipione Borghese in 1605. In this very large garden, the regular and geometric alleys, flowerbeds and groves of aligned trees were joined by other parts of the garden in asymmetrical forms, and by a number of "secret gardens", small sanctuaries of trees and flowers planted with flowers and fruit trees, and surrounded by rows of oak trees, laurel and cypress trees, and populated with birds and animals. This garden marked the beginning of the transition to the more natural landscape garden, based on the romantic vision of an imaginary Arcadia.Kluckert (2015) p. 152
All of these gardens underwent extensive redesign in the 18th century, turning them into more natural-looking landscape gardens. Except in a few preserved paths and flower beds, it is difficult now to imagine them in their original state.
The French Baroque garden reached its summit under Louis XIV, due to his garden designer, André Le Nôtre. Le Nôtre's first large-scale project was for Vaux-le-Vicomte, the château of the King's Superintendent of Finances, Nicolas Fouquet, built between 1656 and 1661. The central feature of this garden was a main axis descending from the château, composed of a series of terraces decorated with parterres of low hedges in ornamental designs. Large basins with jeux d'eau were placed along the central axis, and the garden was set between rows of trimmed trees on the left and right, to lead the eye on the long perspective to the last fountain and grotto below. The garden was meant to be seen from the château, which overlooked it like the box of a theater.Kluckert, "Les Jardins Baroques", in L'Art Baroque – Architecture- Sculpture- Peinture (2015), p. 154–155
The young Louis XIV had Fouquet imprisoned for his extravagance, but greatly admired the garden he created. He commissioned Le NĂ´tre to design a similar, but vastly larger, garden, for his own projected Palace of Versailles.
The most famous Baroque gardens were the Gardens of Versailles created by Le Nôtre between 1662 and 1666. It was built around the original small square park of ninety-three hectares before the château started for Louis XIII by Jacques Boyceau in 1638. In 1662 following the model of Vaux-le-Vicomte, Le Nôtre made the park ten times larger, centered on a grand canal which reached to the horizon. The new park was divided into an elaborate grid of flowerbeds, paths, and alleys, decorated with fountains and sculptures. A third enlargement expanded the park by another six thousand five hundred hectares, including forests for hunting and several nearby villages, surrounded by a wall forty-three kilometres long with twenty-two gates.Kluckert (2015) p. 154
The centrepiece of the garden was the Fountain of Apollo, the symbol of Louis XIV, the sun king himself, surrounded by a network of paths, basins, colonnades, theaters, and monuments. The King himself designed the route that visitors should follow, with twenty-five different mythological scenes, stations, and panoramas. The garden became an outdoor theatre for pageants, promenades, theatre performances, and fireworks shows. Its greatest deficiency was insufficient water for all of the fountains; only a few fountains could work at the same time; they were turned on only when the King was approaching them.Kluckert (2015) pp. 154–155
Between 1676 and 1686, Louis XIV built a smaller version of the Versailles gardens at the Château de Marly, located in a more tranquil valley, where he could escape from the crowds of Versailles. After his death in 1715, portions of the Gardens of Versailles were gradually modified to the new style of an English landscape garden, with trees untrimmed and planted in more natural groves, winding paths, and replicas of Greek temples and even a picturesque model village for the amusement of Marie Antoinette. The gardens of Versailles had many royal visitors, including Peter the Great of Russia, and many of its features were imitated in other European palace gardens.Kluckert (2015) pp. 154–155
The style soon appeared in at the castles of other German princes, including Herrenhausen in Hanover, built at the end of the 17th century. Its designer, Martin Charbonnier, was French, and he included the classic Versailles elements, including a central axis aligned with the castle, a circular pond at the far end of the axis, bouquets of trees, and "secret gardens", small gardens enclosed by trees, places for reading or quiet conversation, at the edges of the garden. He also borrowed some features of , which he had visited in his research, including a canal surrounding the garden and wedge-shaped parterres surrounded by low hedges.Kluckert (2015) pp. 158–159
Another notable Baroque garden in Germany is the Schlosspark, BrĂĽhl (1728), designed by Dominic Girard, who was a pupil of Le NĂ´tre at Versailles. Like Versailles, it features a central axis flanked by ornamental parterres and circular basins with fountains, all flanked by alleys and geometrically trimmed rows of the trees.
Other notable Baroque gardens in Germany include the Großer Garten in Dresden, Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe near Kassel, the garden of Weikersheim Castle (1707–1725), and the gardens of Nymphenburg Palace (1715–1720), which rivaled the Gardens of Versailles in size. The Baroque age in German gardens came to an end with the construction of the garden of Schwetzingen Palace, made in 1753–58 for the Elector Palatine Charles Theodore, by architect Nicolas de Pigage and gardener Johann Ludwig Petri. This garden was filled with artificial Roman ruins, a Chinese bridge, a mosque and other picturesque landmarks; it marked the debut of the romantic English landscape garden in Germany.Ingrid Dennerlein: Die französische Gartenkunst des Régence und des Rokoko, Worms 198x In German
Begun in 1717, the garden connected the two palaces of the Prince. The upper palace and garden was used for grand ceremonies, while the lower garden, by his residence, was arranged with groves of trees and crisscrossed by paths. A large water basin on the upper terrace was connected by stairs and cascades, filled with statues of nymphs and goddesses to the lower garden. The parterres were destroyed and replaced with grass in the eighteenth century, but have recently been restored to their original appearance.Kluckert (2015) p. 160
A portion of the Netherlands, the Dutch Republic, had won its independence from the Spanish Netherlands, and in 1684–86 its ruler William III, the future king of England, constructed the Het Loo Palace with a magnificent Baroque garden. The garden was designed by Claude Desgots, who was the nephew of Le Nôtre; he earlier had reworked the design of the Jardin du Luxembourg and designed the Tuileries Gardens in Paris. The upper garden of Het Loo was primarily inspired by Versailles, with paths radiating from a central alley, while the lower garden, in front of the palace, showed a Dutch influence, divided into independent sections, each different, and divided by alleys lined with the characteristic hedges and trees of the Dutch countryside.Kluckert (2015) p. 160
Philip's successor, Charles III of Spain, also created a notable Baroque garden in the Kingdom of Naples, which he ruled. It was located at Caserta, not far from Naples. As at Granja, the garden was surrounded by hills, while the palace was surrounded by canals, fountains, and geometric parterres decorated with low hedges in Baroque designs.Kluckert (2015) p. 161
Nicodemus Tessin the Elder's son, Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, also became an architect and during the 1670s he spent time in Italy, France and England. During his visit to France in 1677–1678 he spent a great deal of time with Le Nôtre, who had a lasting influence of Tessin's garden designs. He again visited France in the 1680s. The gardens at Drottningholm Palace where laid out by him in the Baroque style.
Peterhof was located on the side of the steep slope overlooking the Gulf of Finland. The new plans called for a formal garden on the upper terrace, and for a grand cascade pouring down the hillside from the palace to a canal, with fountains, leading out to the Gulf. The grand cascade was modeled after that of the Château de Marly, the smaller palace and retreat of Louis XIV near Versailles. The Gardens were laid out in bosquets and alleys of trees in symmetrical patterns, similar to Versailles.
A less-known Baroque garden in St. Petersburg is the park of Oranienbaum (1710–27), that was given by Peter to one of his most prominent nobles, Alexander Danilovich Menshikov.
The Russian Baroque gardens were much modified in the later 18th century to the more natural English landscape garden style; the trees and flower beds were not trimmed, and more natural flowerbeds and winding paths replaced the original parterres. In recent years, some of the parterres have been restored to their original Baroque appearance.
Descriptions of English gardens were first brought to France by Jean-Bernard, abbé Le Blanc, who published accounts of his voyage in 1745 and 1751. A treatise on the English garden, Observations on Modern Gardening, written by Thomas Whately and published in London in 1770, was translated into French in 1771. After the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, French noblemen were able to voyage to England and see the gardens for themselves, and the style began to be adapted in French gardens. The new style also had the advantage of requiring fewer gardeners, and was easier to maintain, than the French garden.Allain and Christiany, pp. 316–318.
One of the first English gardens on the continent was at Ermenonville, in France, built by marquis René Louis de Girardin from 1763 to 1776 and based on the ideals of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who was buried within the park. Rousseau and the garden's founder had visited Stowe House a few years earlier. Other early examples were the Désert de Retz, Yvelines (1774–1782); the Gardens of the Château de Bagatelle, in the Bois de Boulogne, west of Paris (1777–1784); The Folie Saint James, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, (1777–1780); and the Château de Méréville, in the Essonne department, (1784–1786). Even at Versailles, the home of the most classical of all French gardens, a small English landscape park with a Roman temple was built by the Petit Trianon and a mock village, the Hameau de la Reine, Versailles (1783–1789), was created for Marie Antoinette.
The new style also spread to Germany. The central English Grounds of Wörlitz, in the Principality of Anhalt, was laid out between 1769 and 1773 by Leopold III, based on the models of Claremont, Stourhead, and Stowe landscape gardens. Another notable example was The Englischer Garten in Munich, Germany, created in 1789 by Sir Benjamin Thompson (1753–1814). These marked the transition and soon the end of the baroque garden in Europe.
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