Abstract:

The Italian Renaissance garden can be considered among the most famous of garden paradigms. This thesis will examine the total sense perceptions constructed inside the early Renaissance garden, and the cognitive connections between that which is experienced inside the garden and expressed about the garden, for the ultimate purpose of discovering the imago dei . What will first be examined and described in detail are the gardens of fifteenth century Italy, primarily those in the Medici villas, that executed the initial application of geometric forms. By also examining ancient and Renaissance literature and scientific treatises I will show that Renaissance garden design evolved into a formal garden design and theory in the sixteenth century based on evolving perceptions about the meaning of the natural world and the dignity of mankind. I will further address each sense perception inside the garden to demonstrate how sense experience contributed to deeper intellectual and theological meaning. For example, the new visual geometric ordering in the garden beginning in the fifteenth century was considered a microcosm of the order of the universe and visually conveyed symbolic ideas about divine order. What is perhaps new about my approach to Renaissance garden design is the incorporation of the sense of hearing while I discuss the social and cultural meaning of oral history in regard to visual design. During the early Renaissance the garden was spoken about and heard throughout literature, oral tradition and public performance, all of which passed on and reformed ideas about the garden and its newly applied mathematical form. Literary expressions were often voiced aloud and concerned the natural world, which provided ideological foundations for the precise and orderly visual design of Renaissance gardens. The connection between one's audio and visual capacities finalized the holistic sense experience necessary for imagining and remembering abstract ideas intrinsic to garden space and applied to its design. Finally, as part of the humanist tradition, I suggest that spoken words about the garden and multiple sense experiences constructed inside the Renaissance garden provided upper and lower classes of society a place and the ability to be guided to intellectual and spiritual revelation for achieving his or her own image and likeness of God