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Building a Garden: Historiographic Analysis of “Roman Gardens” in the 19th and 20th Centuries

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Abstract

Pierre Grimal’s 1943 thesis on Roman gardens, the birth of archaeology of gardens and the recent opening of museum spaces dedicated to Roman gardens are three founding moments of the modern history of gardens. Since the Renaissance period, however, successive readings of archaeological remains, and Latin and Greek texts have fed the history of Roman gardens, overlays of interpretations, intellectual disputes, opposing and enriching points of views. “Roman Gardens”, as researchers comprehend the subject today, are the results of this history. The object of this chapter is to question the construction of the history of gardens, what we would otherwise call “historiography of Roman gardens”, by bringing to light the more or less visible presuppositions which define gardens, at a specific moment of the history of research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This article is based on the results obtained in one of the chapters of my dissertation, entitled «Habiter dans des jardins: pratiques sociales et politiques des horti de la Ville de Rome. 1er s. av. J.-C. - 1er s. ap. J.-C.», submitted in 2015 in Strasbourg University and in Bern University. I wish to acknowledge the help provided by Mr. Philippe Korb for his translation.

  2. 2.

    Founded by Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss in the 1930s, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection are managed by Harvard University since 1940; divided into various departments (Byzantine Studies, Pre-Columbian Studies, Garden and Landscape Architecture Studies), the institution has become an international research centre on the art of gardens. For a history of the centre, see Wolschke-Bulmahn (1996), MacDougall (1999).

  3. 3.

    Plin. Nat. 16.140: «… but nowadays it is clipped and made into thick walls or evenly rounded off with trim slenderness, and it is even made to provide the representations of the landscape gardener’s work, arraying hunting scenes or fleets of ships and imitations of real objects with its narrow, short, evergreen leaf.» (…nunc vero tonsilis facta in densitatem parietum coercitaque gracilitate perpetuo teres trahitur etiam in picturas operis topiarii, venatus classesve et imagines rerum tenui folio brevique et virente semper vestiens.) Translated by H. Rackham, The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1960.

  4. 4.

    All German and French translations are ours.

  5. 5.

    Gothein acquired academic acknowledgement for initiating study of art of gardens. Her works were translated and republished many times (Gothein 1926, 1977, 1988, 1997 for German language editions; Gothein 1928, 1966, 1979 for English versions; Gothein 2006 for the Italian version).

  6. 6.

    There are three French editions of Les jardins romains (Grimal 1943, 1984; Grimal 20002 [1990] for Italian translations). Should be mentioned the study “L’art des jardins”, published in 1954 in the “Que sais-je?” collection, reedited in 1964 and 1974 (Grimal 20053 [1990] for Italian translations), and later in the miscellaneous volume Rome et l’Amour (Grimal 2007), to which are added unpublished texts on the same theme. From these derive encyclopaedic articles signed by P. Grimal in the Oxford Companion for Gardens (Jellicoe 1986, p. 476–478, republished three times) and in the Encyclopaedia universalis (Grimal, s.v. Art des jardins, Encyclopaedia universalis, 1980, pp. 395–401).

  7. 7.

    On the autonomy of the three types of aristocratic residences, see for instance Cic. Att. 11.6, where different types of property are successively listed: “As for Lentulus, he had earmarked Hortensius’ town house and Caesar’ [gardens] and [his place] at Baiae”. (L. uero Lentulus Hortensi domum sibi et Caesaris hortos et Baias desponderat.) Translated by D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Cambridge University Press, 1966.

  8. 8.

    Cic. Fam. 1.9.20: … habui non temporum solum rationem meorum, sed etiam naturae, Crassusque, ut quasi testata populo Romano esset nostra gratia, paene a meis laribus in provinciam est profectus; nam, cum mihi condixisset, cenavit apud me in mei generi e Crassipedis hortis. Translated by D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Penguin, London, 1986.

  9. 9.

    Suet. Ner. 47.1: Nuntiata interim etiam ceterorum exercituum defectione litteras prandendi sibi redditas concerpserit, mensam subvertit, duos scyphos gratissimi usus, quos Homericos a caelatura carminum Homeri vocabat, solo inlisit ac sumpto a Lucusta veneno et in auream pyxidem condito transiit in hortos Servilianos, ubi praemissis libertorum fidissimis Ostiam ad classem praeparandam tribunos centurionesque praetorii de fugae societate temptavit. […] Sic cogitatione in posterum diem dilata, ad mediam fere noctem excitatus, ut comperit stationem militum recessisse, prosiluit e lecto misitque circum amicos, et quia nihil a quoquam renuntiabatur, ipse cum paucis hospitia singulorum adiit. Verum clausis omnium foribus, respondent nullo, in cubiculum rediit, unde iam et custodes diffugerant, direptis etiam stragulis, amota et pyxide veneni. Translated by J.C. Rolfe, The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1970.

  10. 10.

    Cass. Dio 63.27.3: ὑπὸ πάντων δὲ ὁμοίως ἐγκαταλειφθεὶς ἐβουλεύσατο μὲν τούς τε βουλευτὰς ἀποκτεῖναι καὶ τὴν πόλιν καταπρῆσαι ἔς τε τὴν Ἀλεξάνδρειαν πλεῦσαι […] ἐπεὶ δὲ ᾔσθετο ὅτι καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν σωματοφυλάκων ἐγκαταλέλειπται, (ἐν κήποις δέ τισιν ἐτύγχανε καθεύδων) φυγεῖν ἐπεχείρησεν. Translated by Earnest Cary, The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1961.

  11. 11.

    Plut. Pomp. 48.5-6: ταχὺ μέντοι καὶ αὐτὸς ἐμαλάσσετο τῷ τῆς κόρης ἔρωτι καὶ προσεῖχεν ἐκείνῃ τὰ πολλὰ καὶ υνδιημέρευεν ἐν ἀγροῖς καὶ κήποις, ἠμέλει δὲ τῶν κατ´ ἀγορὰν πραττομένων, ὥστε καὶ Κλώδιον αὐτοῦ καταφρονῆσαι δημαρχοῦντα τότε καὶ θρασυτάτων ἅψασθαι πραγμάτων. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin, The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1961.

  12. 12.

    Suet. Tib. 15: Romam reuersus deducto in Forum filio Druso statim e Carinis ac Pompeiana domo Esquilias in hortos Maecenatianos transmigravit totumque se ad quietem contulit, privata modo officia obiens ac publicorum munerum expers. Translated by J. C. Rolfe, The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1970.

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  1. University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Ilse Hilbold

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  1. Ilse Hilbold
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  1. Laboratoire Dynamiques Européennes—DynamE, Université de Strasbourg/CNRS, Strasbourg, France

    Sandrine Glatron

  2. Laboratoire Dynamiques Européennes—DynamE, Université de Strasbourg/CNRS, Strasbourg, France

    Laurence Granchamp

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Hilbold, I. (2018). Building a Garden: Historiographic Analysis of “Roman Gardens” in the 19th and 20th Centuries. In: Glatron, S., Granchamp, L. (eds) The Urban Garden City . Cities and Nature. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72733-2_2

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