HISTORY OF GARDENS

The course is ranged among the related or additional studies in the three curricula (medieval-byzantine, early modern, contemporary) of the Master's Degree Programme in History of Art and Conseervation of Artistic Heritage. The programme of this year will focus on a topic of early modern art.
The course will provide students with the tools to understand and to independently analyze an artistic and architectural work as particular as it is a garden. The theoretical, critical and methodological deepening will highlight both the specificities and the artistic interrelations and will allow to place the specific theme in a wider historical, political and cultural context.

1. Knowledge and understanding
- Acquisition of appropriate terminology and vocabulary.
- Acquisition of specific bibliographic tools.
- Knowledge of specific examples and know how to place them in a wider context.
2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
- To understand, starting from the knowledge of a targeted selection of examples of gardens, the potentiality of the application of specific survey methodologies.
- Use the acquired terminology effectively.
3. Ability to judge
- A critical approach to the course bibliography should favor the autonomous elaboration of hypotheses and arguments.
4. Communication skills
- Being able to interact constructively with other students on the topics of the course.
- Know how to clearly present the results of an autonomous research / hypothesis.
5. Learning skills
- Memorize, recognize and know how to analyze precise examples of gardens, using the bibliography of the course in a critical way and integrating it with the observations emmerse during the lessons.

No prerequisites are required. However, in order to better understand it, it is useful to have attended three-year courses in the history of art and architecture.
Some general texts on the history of the gardens are listed below.

The course will be dedicated to the Garden of Versailles Palace. It will focus on the period of Louis XIV and the architect of gardens André Le Notre, but it will be necessary to frame this nucleus in a thematic context and in a wider chronological radius.
Among the topics addressed: the 'gardener' craft; The role of theoretical writings; The iconography of Louis XIV and the ceremonial; The relationship between France and Italy; Garden and science; Garden and theater; Garden and movement; Garden, military art and territorial planning.
The course aims to raise students' awareness of the complexity required by the analysis of a garden.
Starting from a concrete example, the garden of the Versailles Palace, they will identify all the components needed to define the evolution and meaning of the site.
At the end of the course students will not only acquire specialist knowledge on the specific monographic object, but they will be able to independently apply the research methodologies to other case studies.

written and oral
The evaluation will be based on:
- Participation at the discussions
- Presentation of a paper (20 min.)
- Written paper (max. 20 pages)

Lectures during the first part of the course.
Presentations of the students during the last lessons.

Italian

written and oral