LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

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.

For specific indications on bibliography see the Moodle page of the course

Michael Brix, The Baroque Landscape. André Le Notre & Vaux Le Vicomte, Rizzoli Int. Publ. 2004
Michael Brix, Der absolute Garten. André Le Notre in Versailles, Stuttgart, Arnoldsche, 2009.
Peter Burke, La fabbrica del re sole, Milano (Il Saggiatore), 1993; ristampa con il titolo Il re sole del 2017.
Gérard Sabatier, Versailles ou la figure du roi, Paris, Albin Michel, 1999.
Gérard Sabatier, Versailles ou la disgrace d’Apollon, Presses universitaires de Rennes 2017 (ISBN: 978-2-7335-5195-4)
Chiara Santini, Il giardino di Versailles: natura, artificio, modello, Firenze, Olschki, 2007.
André Le Notre en perspectives (cat. mostra a cura di Georges Farhat, Patricia Bouchenot-Déchin), Paris, Hazan 2013


General bibliography on Garden History:
A. Maniglio Calcagno, Architettura del paesaggio, Bologna, Calderini, 1983 (and more recent editions)
M. Mosser, G. Teyssot, L'architettura dei giardini d'Occidente. Dal Rinascimento al Novecento, Milano, Electa, 1990 (and more recent editions)
Marie Luise Gothein, Storia dell'arte dei giardini, edizione italiana a cura di Massimo De Vico Fallani, Mario Bencivenni, Firenze, L. S. Olschki, 2006

Bulletin du Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles
Versailles : GIP-Centre de recherche du château de Versailles. Accesso online (BAUM)

Participants can choose between two modes.
1) Classroom presentation of a previously agreed topic + interview (call dates)
2) Delivery of a written paper on a previously agreed topic + interview (dates of calls)
Assessment:
Presentations and term papers: ability to connect the chosen topic with the broader issues covered during the lectures and in any case present in the examination texts (max 5 points); coherence and completeness of the treatment of the chosen topic (max 5 points).
Colloquium: punctual knowledge of the examination texts and materials (ppts on Moodle) of the course (max 10 points); - the ability to rework, with originality and a critical approach, the bibliography and filmography studied (max 5 points); - the argumentative and expository quality (max 5 points).

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

Italian

written and oral