Locus Amoenus

Locus Amoenus provides a pioneering collection of new
perspectives on Renaissance garden history, and the impact of its
development. Experts in the field illustrate the extent of our
knowledge of how the natural world looked and how humans related to
their environment.

• A ground-breaking collection of new perspectives on garden
  history

• Essays demonstrate the extent of our knowledge of how the
  natural world looked and how humans related to their
  environment

• The book's broad coverage includes botany and herbals, literary
  reflections of changing ideas of landscape and nature, and human's
  place within it

• Contributors come from a wide range of experts, including
  archaeologists, scholars and the librarian and archivist to the
  Royal Horticultural Society

• Reflects the growing emergence of this field, which has been
  assisted both by archaeology and ideas from green studies and
  environmental criticism

• Richly illustrated throughout

Auteur

Alexander Samson lectures on early modern Spain and Latin
America at University College London. He is also the co-director of
the Centre for Early Modern Exchanges. His research interests
include Anglo-Spanish intercultural exchange, the marriage of
Philip II and Mary Tudor, and the Golden Age comedia. He is
the editor of The Spanish Match: Prince Charles's Journey
to Madrid, 1623 (2006) and A Companion to Lope de
Vega (with Jonathan Thacker, 2008).

Résumé
Locus Amoenus provides a pioneering collection of new perspectives on Renaissance garden history, and the impact of its development. Experts in the field illustrate the extent of our knowledge of how the natural world looked and how humans related to their environment.

• A ground-breaking collection of new perspectives on garden history
• Essays demonstrate the extent of our knowledge of how the natural world looked and how humans related to their environment
• The book's broad coverage includes botany and herbals, literary reflections of changing ideas of landscape and nature, and human's place within it
• Contributors come from a wide range of experts, including archaeologists, scholars and the librarian and archivist to the Royal Horticultural Society
• Reflects the growing emergence of this field, which has been assisted both by archaeology and ideas from green studies and environmental criticism
• Richly illustrated throughout

Contenu

Notes on contributors ix

Introduction Locus amoenus: gardens and horticulture in
the Renaissance

Alexander Samson 1

1 The world of the Renaissance herbal

Brent Elliott 24

2 Clinging to the past: medievalism in the English
'Renaissance' garden

Paula Henderson 42

3 River gods: personifying nature in sixteenth-century
Italy

Claudia Lazzaro 70

4 Dissembling his art: 'Gascoigne's
Gardnings'

Susan C. Staub 95

5 'My innocent diversion of gardening': Mary
Somerset's plants

Jennifer Munroe 111

6 Outdoor pursuits: Spanish gardens, the huerto and Lope
de Vega's Novelas a Marcia Leonarda

Alexander Samson 124

7 Experiencing the past: the archaeology of some Renaissance
gardens

Brian Dix 151

Index 183