Garden Design History: The Garden of Euphues

In England impetus was given to the acceptance of the New Italianate art-forms by Cardinal Wolsey, a Renaissance figure who would not have been out of place amongst the Borgia, della Rovere, and Farnese cardinals of Rome forty years earlier. Near the end of the century Bacon wrote that `men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening were the greater perfection', but he went on to say that men did neither of those things until the age grew to `civility and elegancy'. The days of the early Tudors were scarcely civil and elegant, but they were at least days of a strong central government which removed from private individuals the power to make war upon their neighbours and directed their competitive talents into other channels. The lead in luxurious and ostentatious living among glorious outdoor water fountains was naturally given by Henry VIII himself 1 and by his remarkable minister. The two great gardens of the first half of the sixteenth century in England were at Nonsuch and Hampton Court. The palaces they surrounded were no longer castles, but had become domestic buildings designed for comfort and display. Their gardens, too, broke free from the limitations of a protected site and like the houses were dedicated to pleasing the owner and gratifying his pride. But Nonsuch and Hampton Court were no more Italian gardens than the palaces they surrounded were Italian buildings. It was not enough that like the garden Charles VIII had made at Blois they were sprinkled with what passed for Italian features.