science

History of parks and gardens of Paris

History of parks and gardens of Paris is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand History of parks and gardens of Paris rather than just read about it. In short: Paris today has more than 421 municipal parks and gardens, covering more than three thousand hectares and containing more than 250,000 trees. Two of Paris's oldest and most famous gardens are the Tuileries Garden, created in 1564 for the Tuileries Palace, and redone by André Le Nôtre in 1664; and the Luxembourg Garden, belonging to a château built for Marie de' Medici in 1612, which today houses the French Senate.

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Reference excerpt

Paris today has more than 421 municipal parks and gardens, covering more than three thousand hectares and containing more than 250,000 trees. Two of Paris's oldest and most famous gardens are the Tuileries Garden, created in 1564 for the Tuileries Palace, and redone by André Le Nôtre in 1664; and the Luxembourg Garden, belonging to a château built for Marie de' Medici in 1612, which today houses the French Senate. The Jardin des Plantes was the first botanical garden in Paris, created in 1626 by Louis XIII's doctor Guy de La Brosse for the cultivation of medicinal plants. Between 1853 and 1870, the Emperor Napoleon III and the city's first director of parks and gardens, Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, created the Bois de Boulogne, the Bois de Vincennes, Parc Montsouris and the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, located at the four points of the compass around the city, as well as many smaller parks, squares and gardens in the neighborhoods of the city. One hundred sixty-six new parks have been created since 1977, most notably the Parc de la Villette (1987–1991) and Parc André Citroën (1992). Some of the most notable recent gardens of Paris are not city parks, but parks belonging to museums, including the gardens of the Rodin Museum and the Musée du quai Branly or smaller intimate gardens of the Musée Delacroix or Musée de la Vie romantique.

From Roman times through the Middle Ages

Gardens existed in Paris in Roman times and the Middle Ages, either to produce fruits, vegetables and medicinal herbs; for the meditation of monks; or for the pleasure of the nobility; but no trace remains of the original gardens of the Roman town of Lutetia. The royal palace on the Île de la Cité had a walled garden located at the southern point of the palace, near where the statue of Henry IV on the Pont Neuf is today. The garden disappeared when the Place Dauphine was built in the early 17th century. The monasteries on the left bank had extensive gardens and orchards from the Middle Ages until the French Revolution. The Jardin des Plantes was built on land that originally belonged to the Abbey of Saint Victor. and a large part of the Luxembourg Garden today belonged to the neighboring monastery of the Chartreux. A small modern recreation of a medieval garden is found today next to the Cluny Museum, the former residence of the abbot of the Abbey of Cluny.

Renaissance Gardens and Gardens a la Française (1564-1700) In 1495, King Charles VIII and his nobles imported the Renaissance garden style from Italy after their unsuccessful Italian War of 1494–1498. The new French Renaissance garden was characterized by symmetrical and geometric planting beds or parterres; plants in pots; paths of gravel and sand; terraces; stairways and ramps; moving water in the form of canals, cascades and monumental fountains, and extensive use of artificial grottoes, labyrinths and statues of mythological figures. They also featured a long axis perpendicular to the palace, with bodies of water and a view of the whole garden, They were designed to illustrate the Renaissance ideals of measure and proportion, and to remind viewers of the virtues of Ancient Rome. The French kings imported not only the ideas, but also Italian gardeners, landscape architects, and fountain-makers to create their gardens. The first examples in France were far from Paris, where there was more space for big gardens; the gardens of the royal Château d'Amboise (1496), the Château de Blois (c. 1500), Château de Fontainebleau (1528), and the Château de Chenonceau (1521), with additions by Catherine de' Medici in 1560. In the mid-17th century, under Louis XIV, the French formal garden, or Jardin à la française, gradually replaced the Renaissance style garden; it was more formal and geometric, and symbolized the dominance of the King over nature. The most famous example was the gardens of Versailles, made by André Le Nôtre beginning in 1661. Le Nôtre remade the Tuileries Gardens in the new style beginning in 1664.

Jardins des Tuileries (1564)

The first royal garden of the Renaissance in Paris was the Jardin des Tuileries, created for Catherine de' Medici in 1564 to the west of her new Tuileries Palace. It was inspired by the gardens of her native Florence, particularly the Boboli Gardens, and made by a Florentine gardener, Bernard de Carnesecchi. The garden was laid out along the Seine, and divided into squares of fruit trees and vegetable gardens divided by perpendicular alleys and by boxwood hedges and rows of cypress trees. Like Boboli, it featured a grotto, with faience "monsters" designed by Bernard Palissy, whom Catherine had assigned to discover the secret of Chinese porcelain. Under Henry IV, the old garden was rebuilt, following a design of Claude Mollet, with the participation of Pierre Le Nôtre, the father of the famous garden architect. A long terrace was built on the north side, looking down at the garden, and a circular basin was constructed, along with an octagonal basin on the central axis. In 1664 he garden was remade again by André Le Nôtre in the style of the classic French formal garden, with parterres bordered with low shrubs and bodies of water organized along a wide central axis. He added the Grand Carré around the circular basin at the east end of the garden, and the horseshoe-shaped ramp at the west end, leading to a view of the entire garden. In 1667, Charles Perrault, the author of Sleeping Beauty and other famous fairy tales, proposed to Louis XIV that the garden be opened at times to public. His proposal was accepted, and the public (with the exception of soldiers in uniform, servants and beggars) were allowed on certain days to promenade in the park.

Cours-la-Reine (Cours-Albert-I) (1616)

The Cours-la-Reine (part of which today is named Cours-Albert-I after the King of Belgium during the First World War) was created by Marie de' Medici, who, like Catherine de' Medici, was nostalgic for her native Florence It was a long promenade (1.5 kilometers) along the Seine originally planted in with four long rows of elm trees. Built before the Champs Elysees, it was a popular promenade for the nobility, on foot or on horseback.

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Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with History of parks and gardens of Paris

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what History of parks and gardens of Paris claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to History of parks and gardens of Paris before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about History of parks and gardens of Paris ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of History of parks and gardens of Paris

In research: History of parks and gardens of Paris appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses History of parks and gardens of Paris in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: History of parks and gardens of Paris is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Landscape architecture, Lists of gardens, Lists of parks by populated place, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for History of parks and gardens of Paris outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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Frequently asked questions

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