0 Seventeenth-century theory in : its culmination at Vaux-le-Vicomte

by Chantal Marie Cormier

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research 0 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Department of Art History McGill University March 1992

@ Chantal Marie Cormier Montreal, Quebec, Canada 0 National BibliotheQue natiooale 11+1 of Canada du canada Canadian Theses Service Service des theSes canadiennes

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ABSTRACT 0 The and of Vaux-le-Vicomte were created between 1656 and 1661 for the flamboyant French patron of the arts Nicolas Foucquet, Louis XIV's first fmance minister. In imitation of his predecessors, Foucquet required a country residence and jardin de plaisir worthy of his status. The end results are the fabulous gardens and chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte. Unlike its prototypes, this complex had an unexpected and far-reaching influence throughout . For the first time, Foucquet brought together the great triumvirate composed of , Charles LeBrun and Andre LeNostre who would later develop their ideas even further at Versailles. But in the end, scholars have agreed to designate Vaux-le-Vicomte as the first palace-garden complex of the true monumental French formal manner. Yet, despite this recognition, it is often neglected by garden historians in favor of its immediate successor, Versailles. By examining garden treatises and theories published at both the close of the sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth century, this thesis attempts to present Vaux-le-Vicomte as the ultimate end product of several generations of garden theorists. The conclusions of this study c suggest that Vaux-le-Vicomte should be recognized as playing a more significant role within the context of formal palace and not only in seventeenth-century France but in other parts of Europe as well.

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RESUME

Le palais Vaux-le-Vicomte et ses jardins ont ete construits entre 1656 et 1661 pour Nicolas Foucquet, premier ministre des Finances de Louis XIV et flamboyant mecene fran9ais. A l'instar de ses predecesseurs, Foucquet devait avoir une residence digne de son rang, qui serait entouree d'un jardin de plaisir. Le magnifique chateau de Vaux-le­ Vicomte et ses jardins en sont la preuve. Contrairement a ses prototypes, cet ensemble architectural a eu une influence etonnante dans toute !'Europe. Pour la premiere fois, Foucquet a reuni le triumvirat desormais celebre: Louis Le Vau, Charles LeBrun et Andre LeNostre. Par la suite, en effet, ces trois hommes ont eu la chance de developper leurs idees et leurs talents encore plus avec 1' erection de Versailles. Les experts en sont a la conclusion que Vaux-le-Vicomte etait le premier palais-jardin qui representait le mieux le style fran9ais officiel de 1' epoque. Malgre cette reconnaissance, bien des chercheurs qui ont retrace l'histoire des jardins ignorent Vaux-le-Vicomte au profit de son successeur immediat, Versailles. Par 1'examen des traites et des etudes qui ont ete publies sur les jardins a la fm du XVIe siecle ou au debut du XVIIe siecle, le present memoire 0 tente de presenter Vaux-le-Vicomte comme la concretisation des idees de plusieurs generations d 'experts et de theoriciens en jardins. Les conclusions de la presente etude laissent entendre que vaux-le-Vicomte devrait etre reconnu comme ayant joue un role marquant dans I'architecture des palais officiels et de leurs jardins, non seulement dans la France du XVIIe siecle, mais aussi ailleurs en Europe.

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A Maman, pour ton dynamisme et I 'encouragement IV

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... ii

Resume ...... iii

Acknowledgements ...... v

List of Illustrations ...... vi

Glossary ...... IX

Introduction ...... 1

Chapter One: Foucquet and his Age ...... 4

France in Context Life of Foucquet The Fatal Fete

Chapter Two: Garden Theory in France ...... 11

Sixteenth Century Seventeenth Century

Chapter Three: Andre LeNostre ...... 28 Heir to a Tradition

LeNostre's Milieu Theater and Perspective New function of Gardens

Chapter Four: Vaux-1e-Vicomte ...... 33 Garden of lllusion

Conclusion ...... 56 Appendix 1 ...... 58 Craftsmen working at Vaux Appendix 2 ...... 59 Silvestre's engravings of Vaux Notes ...... 61 ...... 75 Illustrations ...... 83 V

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to acknowledge my advisor, Dr. Thomas Glen, for initially suggesting the topic, and for his encouragement and guidance throughout the writing of this thesis. His constructive criticism has been invaluable. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the members of the Art History Department for the stimulating course of study. Special thanks go to the Interlibrary Loan Service at McLennan Library. Without their continued efforts, the research would have been far from complete due to the lack of available research material. Finally, I am especially grateful to my close friends and colleagues who offered their time, encouragement and ideas. I owe my deepest gratitude to my parents and brother, without whose patience, love, and support, this project would not have been completed. 0

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 0 figure 1. Nanteuil, Robert. Portrait of Nicolas Foucquet. Engraving, 1661. (Woodbridge Princely Gardens).

2. du Cerceau, Jacques Androuet. Blois. Engraving from Les plus excellents bastiments de France, 1576-1579. (Dumbarton Oaks Garden Library).

3. du Cerceau, Jacques Androuet. Ancy-le-Franc. Engraving from Les plus excellents bastiments de France, 1576-1579. (British Museum).

4. Perelle (?). Montceaux-en-Brie. Engraving, n.d. (probably mid-seventeenth century). (Adams The French Garden).

5. Maratta, Carlo. Portrait of Andre LeNostre. Oil on canvas, n.d. (Musee de Versailles).

6. LeNostre, Andre. Vaux-le-Vicomte. Drawing, n.d. (, Ms.1040).

7. Silvestre, Israel. Vaux-le-Vicomte, plan. Engraving, n.d. (Bibliotheque Nationale, 0 Cabinet des Estampes ). 8. Silvestre, Israel. Vaux-le-Vicomte, entrance far;ade. Engraving, n.d. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes).

9. Vaux-le-Vicomte, aerial view. Photograph, n.d. (Alain Perceval).

10. Vaux-le-Vicomte, Salon Oval. Photograph, 1990. (By the author).

11. LeBrun, Charles. The Palace of the Sun. Drawing, c.March 1660. (Musee du , Cabinet des Dessins).

12. Perelle, Gabriel. Le Raincy. Engraving, 1663. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes).

13. Vaux-le-Vicomte, aerial view. Photograph, n.d. (Jeannel LeNotre).

14. Vaux-le-Vicomte, gardenfar;ade. Photograph, 1990. (By the author).

15. Silvestre, Israel. Vaux-le-Vicomte, the central vista looking away from the chdteau. Engraving, n.d. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes). vii

16. Vaux-le-Vicomte, the central vista looking away from the chateau. Photograph, n.d. c (Jeannel, LeNotre). 17. Vaux-le-Vicomte, ground plan. Drawing, 1991. (By the author).

18. Vaux-le-Vicomte, view looking towards the chateau. Photograph, 1990. (By the author).

19. Aveline. Vaux-le-Vicomte, view looking towards the chateau. Engraving, n.d. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes).

20. Vaux-le-Vicomte, le Confessionnal. Photograph, 1990. (By the author).

21. Silvestre, Israel. Vaux-le-Vicomte, des Fleurs. Engraving, n.d. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes).

22. Silvestre, Israel. Vaux-le-Vicomte, Parterre de la Couronne. Engraving, n.d. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes).

23. Silvestre, Israel. Vaux-le-Vicomte, view towards Le Potager. Engraving, n.d. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes).

24. Silvestre, Israel. Vaux-le-Vicomte, view towards La Grille d' eau. Engraving, n.d. 0 (Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes). 25. Vaux-le-Vicomte, view of the central a/Lee. Photograph, 1990. (By the author).

26. Silvestre, Israel. Vaux-le-Vicomte, view of the Cascade. Engraving, n.d. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes).

27. Perelle, A. Meudon, the . Engraving, c.1650. (Dumbarton Oaks Garden Library).

28. Aveline. Liancourt, view of the cascade. Engraving, n.d. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes ).

29. Vaux-le-Vicomte, La Cascade (detail). Photograph, 1990. (By the author).

30. Silvestre, Israel. Vaux-le-Vicomte, view of the grotto and canal. Engraving, n.d. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes).

31. Falda, Giovanni Battista. Montalto, the and . Engraving, n.d. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes). c 32. Vaux-le-Vicomte, view of the Grotto. Photograph, 1990. (By the author). Vlll

33. Vaux-le-Vicomte, view of La Gerbe and . Photograph, 1990. (By the c author). 34. Vaux-le-Vicomte, view of Hercules. Gilt bronze, nineteenth century copy. (Photograph by the author)

35. Puget, Pierre. Seated Resting Hercules. Marble, c.1659. Musee du Louvre. (Photograph by the author).

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GLOSSARY 0

Allee: the sanded walks formimg the framework of the garden in a French

Allee d 'eau: a path whose outer margins are marked by jets placed at regular intervals

Bosguet: a grove or a thicket

Bouillon d'eau: literally water bubbles, the term refers to a type fountain whose do not rise to a great height but emerge as a bubbling

Chateau: used in the sense of a country house

Coros de logis: the main residential part of a chateau

Gerbe: 0 a fountain in the form of a powerful jet descending as spray all around

Grille d 'eau: a in which water is used to simulate a more permanent substance, such as architecture

Jet d'eau: a fountain shooting straight up through a single pipe that determines its size

Miroir d 'eau: a man-made pool designed as a reflecting surface

Naumachia: an amphitheatre for mock sea battles, performed as an entertainment

Palissade: in the seventeenth century, the carefully clipped (of any height) surrounding the open areas of the garden

Parterre: a bed in a garden, sometimes planted with , box, or turf. Usually found in c the area adjoining the house X

Parterre de broderie: a bed comprised of patterns embroidered in box against a background of colored 0 earth or stones

Parterre de buies: a bed patterned in dwarf boxwood

Piece d' eau: a pond or man-made pool, usually of stone construction

Relief: expression commonly used by French sixteenth and seventeenth garden theorists to identify the vertical decorative elements- either architectural, sculptural or vegetal- that project from a flat ground.

Ressaut: projection into a , either architectural or decorative

Rond d'eau: a circular man-made pool

Rond-point: a circular area from which avenues or paths radiate

0 Tapis vert: an area of flat, clipped , usually left undecorated

Vertugadin: a turfed area laid out on a slope and usually of crescent shape. It often serves as the terminal element for a vista

Virt.il: the quality or practice of moral righteousness

SOURCES:

Hazlehurst, F. Hamilton. Gardens of Illusion: The Genius of Andre LeNostre. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1980.

Woodbridge, Kenneth. Princely Gardens: The Origins and Development of the French Formal Style. New York: Rizzoli International Publications Inc., 1986. c c

INTRODUCTION

From ancient times, religious beliefs in western society have taught the faithful that the kingdom of God is a blossoming into which only the chosen may enter. In anticipation of such a heavenly paradise, landscape designers were inspired to fashion, here on earth, beautifully arranged and cultivated gardens where was manipulated with great creativity. In Europe, these sites came to symbolize the sensual and spiritual qualities of their creators, their genius for invention and their talent for cultivation and engineering.1 Through the efforts of Andre LeNostre, the final form of the French formal garden culminated at Vaux-le-Vicomte, after having developed slowly and logically throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Consequently, as the epitome of the jardin de plaisir in the French monumental formal manner, the Seigneurie of Vaux-le-Vicomte (1656-1661) was to influence the majority of palace-garden projects throughout Europe until the mid-eighteenth century. Only Versailles, its immediate successor and imitator surpasses it. The became associated with the life of ceremony and display that marked Louis XIV's absolutist reign. In resume, the carefully manicured were the product of the French rational intellect which demanded that Nature be controlled and dominated by human reason. Hazlehurst accurately declares that the arts of "Le Grand Siecle" did not spring forth full blown as Athena from the head of , but, on the contrary, were based upon principles established especially during the vital formative years during the reigns of Henri IV, Marie de' Medicis, and Louis XITI.3 To understand French garden design of the mid-seventeenth century, a survey of landscape theory and practice prior to the work of LeNostre is essential. The late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century were theorists eager to commit their thoughts to paper. Important garden treatises from this time include those by Oaude Mallet the Elder written in 1615 and published in 1652; by Sieur Jacques Boyceau de la Barauderie in 0 1638; and by Andre Mallet in 1651. These works reveal that the guiding principles of 2

French were established early during the seventeenth century. By 0 the 1630's, the new ideas expressed by these writers had been put into practice at various royal domains, including the Tuileries and Luxembourg gardens. Future French landscape architects of the second half of the seventeenth century, armed with these dissertations, and heirs to a long tradition of garden art on a majestic scale, were now ready to create the full-fledged French formal style, associated with Louis XIV's absolutist reign. In the mid-seventeenth century, it was Andre LeNostre, to the King, who elevated to a position of unparalleled importance in France. Conse­ quently, in order to designate Vaux-le-Vicomte as a French monumental formal garden in its final stage of development, we must consider the historical events leading to the creation of this , review garden concepts and theories prevalent before LeNostre's time, and examine how they were applied by LeNostre at Vaux-le-Vicomte. With the exception of a short burst of activity early in this century, there has been surprisingly little scholarly interest in French garden history. Moreover, there is still no adequate study of the best preserved example of "Le Grand Siecle", Vaux-le-Vicomte; nor is there a comprehensive biography on Andre LeNostre. Apart from E. Bonnaffe Les ama­ 0 teurs de l'ancienne France: Le surintendant Fouguet 1882, Jean Cordey's Vaux-le-Vicom­ te, notice historigue et descriptive sur le chateau et le pare 1923, the majority of contribu­ tions have come since the 1960's: F.H. Hazlehurst's Jacgues Boyceau and the French Formal Garden 1966; the results of the Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on French formal gardens held in 1974; W.H. Adams The French Garden 1979; F.H. Hazlehurst's Gardens of Illusion: The Genius of Andre LeNostre 1980; Bemard Jeanners LeNotre 1985; and K. Woodbridge's Princely Gardens 1986. Documents in the form of plans, prints, and contemporary descriptions are critical because, by their very nature, garden art materials are among the most fleeting and ephemeral. Given the organic qualities of the garden, where cycles of growth and decay endlessly change the face of the landscape, it is difficult to be precise about even basic details of form, texture, and color in any given year or decade. Furthermore, in the great French gardens, nothing was ever completely static. Conceptual changes were constantly being introduced and tested only to be replaced by more innovations and alterations. This c fact, so often forgotten, makes an investigation all the more complex from a historical 3

point of view. To make matters even more difficult, most mid-seventeenth century prints were highly imaginative and are, therefore, unreliable. For this reason one can only use the illustrations of engravers known to have faithfully depicted what they saw. Views by Aveline and the Perelle are not acceptable. On the other hand, Israel Silvestre's are considered accurate and were employed by the nineteenth-century owners of Vaux-le­ Vicomte to reconstruct the gardens. Though Silvestre took liberties, his style reflects the monumentality and grandeur of the sites he depicted and the age in which he lived. While distorting the perspective and often increasing the size of , Silvestre, with his highly detailed prints, remained in essence more faithful to the subjects he engraved than most of his peers.4 During the creation of Vaux-le-Vicomte, Foucquet displayed his power, wealth and beneficence to the full. He encouraged poets, engravers and friends to write about and illustrate the beauties of Vaux-le-Vicomte. Several of these contemporary descriptions are quoted in this thesis, though two sources in particular were most helpful. These are Jean de LaFontaine's Le Songe de Vaux (1671), a narrative allegory using different sections 0 of the garden at Vaux as the setting and, 10 of Madeleine de Scudery's Clelie, histoire romaine (1654-1661 ). Her description of the imaginary Valterre is based on Vaux­ le-Vicomte. By the mid-seventeenth century, a propitious artistic together with a confluence of several other important factors, were responsible for the creation of the French monumental garden complex. The aesthetic ideas nurtured by the Elder, Jacques Boyceau and , in the epochs of Henri IV and Louis XIII, were to be fully realized during the youth of Louis XIV. The practical application of their theories codified the essential attitudes and rules for French formal gardening and, in fact, marked the end of French Renaissance gardens. Furthermore, the means to create these "new" gardens were available under the patronage of wealthy and powerful financiers, such as Foucquet. As a result, it was Andre LeNostre, the gardener, the "chef d'or­ chestre", who brought together, manipulated and elaborated upon the ideas inherited from c previous garden theorists. 0 CHAPTER ONE Foucquet and his Age

Seventeenth-century France is known as "Le Grand Siecle." In effect, a great explosion of intellectual activity occurred following the stagnant period of the sixteenth century's religious civil wars. The French saw the rise of Classicism, a stoic and didactic version of the Italian Baroque tradition. Unlike the Italian Baroque, the French style was considered rational, reserved, logical, polished, refined, and compulsive in its application of order and logic. When the French expressed their love of reason they demonstrated, in fact, their profound respect for the powers of the intellect. 1 One of the most brilliant groups of Frenchmen ever to have appeared at one time flourished during the period of Richelieu and Mazarin. In philosophy it was the age of Descartes, in religious thought Pascal was eminent, in drama Corneille reigned, Poussin and Claude

were the popular artists, Fran~ois Mansart was the leading architect, and in spirituality it

was the time of Saint Fran~ois de Sales. In resume, it was an age of reason. 0 Nevertheless, Reason did not reign supreme. Vaux-le-Vicomte (1656-1661) was created during a period of upheavels which included from 1648 to 1653, the war with and the establishment of Louis XIV's absolute monarchy. The young Louis XIV and Nicolas Foucquet grew up during these events; their careers evolving toge­ ther until Foucquet' s fall from royal favour in 1661. By mid-century, on the threshold of a new era, Nicolas Foucquet (1615-1680), arrogant, autocratic and defiant, stands out as the personification of the dominant influences of the age.2 He was a descendant of parliamentarians who were rich and enterprising men from the middle class or . This group's fmancial support represented a monetary source on which the kings, from Henri IV onwards, increasingly depended. As a result, this was rewarded by the monarchy with appointments to high office; much to the consternation of the noblemen who, thus by-passed, were reduced to idle onlookers.3 Foucquet's unparallelled intelligence and daring facilitated his success. Indeed, imitating his family's adopted emblem, the squirrel, known for its quick­ c ness of mind; and his motto, "Quo non ascendet?" ("What heights will he not scale?"), 5

Foucquet rapidly through the ranks.4 He occupied, in turn, the offices of counsellor 0 to the parliament of Metz, Administrator of the of the Dauphine, and Attorney­ General of the parliament. During the troubled times of the Fronde, when the tried to wrest power away from the monarchy, Foucquet remained an ardent and loyal supporter of both Louis XIV and . With peace restored Foucquet, at the time only thirty-eight, was rewarded with the position of Surintendant des Finances (1653-1661), and given the task of replenishing the empty State Treasury. The Ministry of Finance handled taxes levied on people at all levels of society. In effect, because government was so loosely administered, questionable methods of tax were prevalent. Following the practices established by his predecessors, and to augment his salary, Foucquet appropriated a percentage of the money collected.5 Foucquet thus gained immense wealth by employing procedures no more dubious than those of his colleagues. The difference was that his use of the extra money exhibited his exceptional taste. Most of it was spent on refurbishing Saint Mande and in creating Vaux-le-Vicomte. Overly confident, Foucquet did not pause to consider what envy and suspicion his high rank and unnatural wealth might conjure up in the minds of his peers. Indeed, towards the end of 0 his career, he was fmancially more powerful than his monarch. Like Mazarin, Foucquet actually came to believe that he could govern France and dominate the young king whom he thought to be interested only in the sensuous pleasures of life.6 Unfortunately, several events had embittered, hardened and molded Louis during his youth. Cardinal Mazarin had obliged the young king to live in sordid poverty in con­ trast to his splendid luxury. It is true, however, that Louis, clothed in gold-laced coat and diamond-buckled hat with ostrich feather, looked every inch a monarch when he ins­ pected his unpaid troops. Yet, these were only his "stage clothes"; at home the situation was quite different. Not a pair of sheets was without large holes, his worn-out dressing gown fell only half-way down his legs, and the upholstery of his shabby old coach hung in rags. Furthermore, tradesmen with long outstanding accounts threatened to stop supplying the royal table. But it was the humiliation, rather than the hardship, that galled Louis so insufferably. The lean years under Mazarin left an indelible mark on his character. In his later years, at Versailles, the distinct notion of playing the role of le roi 0 du theatre was never far from his mind. This play-acting may have had its origin in 6

Louis's youth when he was forced to portray the contrasting roles of "Louis the king" and 0 "Louis the private individuaL "7 The time of the Fronde was Louis XIV's most negative period. Indeed, 1651 was to mark the lowest ebb of his personal fortunes. During the civil war, King, Cardinal, and Court found themselves blockaded in the Louvre by citizen guards who, upon hearing rumour of his departure from the capital, broke into the palace and insisted on seeing their Sovereign. There was nothing to do but yield to this force majeure.8 It was in this political climate, in 1656, that Nicolas Foucquet began to build the Chateau of Vaux-le­ Vicomte, oblivious of the repercussions his extravagances would produce.(fig.1) Perhaps, not surprisingly, the king compared his own relative destitution and tumble-down royal chateaux with the splendid edifice and gardens built by Foucquet.9 On the very morning of Mazarin's death, on the 8th of March 1661, now free of his mentor's restraints, Louis set about consolidating his own authority. He met with his Heads of Departments, and for the first time spoke to them en roi. The Ministers left grumbling about the sovereign's sudden whim. They foresaw a period of uncertainty while Louis "played at" being monarch. But little did they realise that Louis XIV' s absolutist reign had begun.10 Fouc­ 0 quet, as unsuspecting as his colleagues, continued his extravagant and fast-paced life that would eventually lead to his downfall. The purchase of the Seigneurie of Vaux-le-Vicomte in 1641, was intended to satisfy Foucquet's ambitions. It gave him rights of accession to titled lands and was to provide him with an aristocratic country retreat. At this time, his main residence was the Cha.teau of Saint-Mande in the Bois de outside Paris. Here Foucquet housed his two prized possessions: his large library and his vast collection of exotic flowers. Here, too, he also met with petitioners in his capacity as Minister of Finance.11 The location of Vaux, covering hundreds of acres, originally consisted of a small fortified castle and a scattering of three small villages: Vaux, Jumeaux and Maison-Rouge.12 It became his second but most important retreat; it would serve as his jardin de plaisir and as setting for concerts, ballets and comedies. It was to be a palace-garden to charm and astound the viewer. At Vaux, Foucquet wanted to surround himself with the arts, literature, women, poets, flowers, and statues; in short, beauty and pleasure in every c form. He showered artists with gifts, commissions, and encouragement. In this way, he 7

attracted a distinguished circle of friends which included LaFontaine, Moliere, Pellisson, 0 LaQuintinie and Mile. de Scudery. At Vaux, Foucquet attempted to recreate Hotel Ram­ bouillet.13 Patrons of the period, like Foucquet, were turbulent and passionate in their excess. Regardless of how much they respected the virtues of order and restraint in the arts, they were not prepared to endure boredom. 14 Foucquet gathered around him a team of architects, sculptors, painters, poets, dramatists, and musicians, who made Vaux-le­ Vicomte the greatest art centre of the period. After his disgrace, these people became the nucleus of Versailles culture. Later when he was imprisoned, Foucquet justified his actions in the following manner: This was the estate I regarded as my principal seat, and where I intended to leave some traces of the status I had enjoyed.15

Vaux-le-Vicomte, the product of the combined and brilliant efforts of architect Louis LeVau, painter-decorator Charles LeBrun, and landscape architect Andre Lenostre, was built in only five years. This was an exceptionally short time considering what major modifications had to be made to the existing terrain in order to achieve the resulting har­ 0 monious visual effect The earth-moving required to create evenly sloping ramps and raised terraces would have challenged even the most modern machinery. However, in the seventeenth century, thousands of men accomplished the work with picks, , and . When the gardens were completed, the surfaces were as smooth as the finish on a sculptor's marble. Art, not nature, was supreme in these gardens.16 The rapidity with which the work was accomplished did not allow for any mistakes or false starts.17 The schedule was demanding: 1656: ne variatur plan signed by LeVau, Villedo and Foucquet 3 villages demolished to clear the land 1657: the stonework was finished the pavement was laid by the marble cutters the panelling was installed by the carpenters 1658: the lantern was set on the cupola 1660: the ceilings were decorated the were laid down by LeNostre the sites were excavated for the sheets of water 1661: 17th August, Fete de Vaux 18 Since such rapid progress had been made, it was possible to hold several fetes at c Vaux in the summer of 1661. However, because the king had been unable to attend, 8 Foucquet gave his command performance on 17 August 1661. The timing was not propi­ tious. France was still suffering from the devastation caused by both the Fronde and the activities of marauding Spaniards on the frontiers. Foucquet was oblivious of the effect that this display of wealth would have on prominent people who found themselves in straitened circumstances. 19 A total of six thousand people were invited to his fete of fetes. 20 Having arrived late in the afternoon from , Louis first visited the chateau, where Charles LeBrun explained the significance of the heroic allegories honouring Foucquet. This was followed by a visit to the with its prodigious display of . The evening continued with a supper prepared by the celebrated Chef Vatel. Later, Moliere's Les Facheux was performed in the garden. The play had been written in two weeks and rehearsed especially for the occasion.21 To complement the comedy, LeBrun had painted the backdrops, while Pelisson, the well-known prose writer and Fouc­ quet's secretary, had composed a prologue in Louis's honour. This in turn was recited by the best actress of the day, La Bejart. Giacomo Torelli of Urbino arranged ballets for the intermissions, for which Lulli, the Florentine composer, wrote the music.Z2 The celebrations ultimately concluded with a magnificent fireworks display. LaFontaine enthusiactically describes the day in all its splendour:

Tout combattit a Vaux pour le plaisir du Roi, la musique, les eaux, les lustres, les etoiles ... 23 Vaux's fete surpassed in grandeur, quality and refinement the entertainment provided by Cardinal Mazarin for Louis XIV's marriage. In a sense, it was a resume of Foucquet's public and intellectual life. One hundred years later Voltaire would accurately relate the results of that one day: Le 17 aofi.t, a six heures du soir, Foucquet etait le roi de France; a deux heures du matin, il n'etait plus rien.24

Louis XIV found it excessive. Not only did it surpass anything he himself could provide, but it angered him that his Minister was prodigiously rich when the royal finances were strained to the breaking point.25 Three weeks later, on the 5th of September, the Minister was arrested on the king's orders for embezzlement of funds. Foucquet's peers considered it to be one of the grossest miscarriages of justice ever perpetrated in 0 France.26 The trial lasted three years and kept France "buzzing" with discussion.27 While 9

the prosecutors collected and assessed the evidence against Foucquet, the balance of sympathy shifted in his favour. His defense was skillful and vigorous, more than a match for the judges who cross-examined him. Many then thought-- as many still do today-- that Foucquet was treated too harshly since he was no more dishonest than his colleagues, who had also become rich by selling offices and levying illegal taxes. 28 The king demanded the death penalty, while the majority of the judges favored banishment. This would have been tantamount to an acquittal, for once out of Louis's reach, Foucquet could have rebuilt both his power and financial status. For the first and last time in French history, Louis XIV, had the power to pardon the offender. Instead, he overruled the court's decision and sentenced his former minister to life-imprisonment. Foucquet was dispatched to Pignerol, a small prison in the Savoyan Alps, where he remained in seclusion for nineteen years until his death in 1680.29 Prior to Foucquet's trials LaFontaine had written a poem circulated in the hope of swaying the king's feelings, but to no avaiL These verses were later republished in 1671 as the final portion of the ode entitled Le Songe de Vaux. The poet summarizes the loss felt by France of this great patron of the 0 arts: Remplissez l'air de vos cris en vos grottes profondes, pleurez, Nymphes de Vaux, faites croitres vos ondes; et que 1' Anqueuil enfle ravages les tresors ... On ne blamera point vos larmes innocentes; ... Chacun attend de vous ce devoir genereux; les destins sont contents; Oronte (Foucquet) est malheureux ... Plein d 'eclat, plein de gloire, adore des mortels, recevait des honneurs qu 'on ne doit qu 'aux autels. Voila le precipice ou 1' on enfin jete les attraits enchanteur de la prosperite ... LaFontaine, Elegie aux Nymphes de Vaux (February 1662)

Foucquet's crime was to have had the audacity to lead a style of life more opulent and regal than his monarch's. In a State centred on the king, there was no room for a man with Foucquet's charisma and popularity. The underlying message was that the king, and the king alone, could put on entertainment and live on such a lavish and ostentatious scale.30 Unwisely, the opulence at Vaux far exceeded that of any of the royal chateaux. Annoyed by what he had seen at Vaux, Louis XIV could not allow Foucquet's lingering image to surpass him in stature. This "phobia" was to cost the State coffers millions, with c Versailles and Marly-le-Roi incurring the major expenditures. Fleurent captures the 10

essence of Vaux' s short apogee:

Ne d'un reve, Vaux-le-Vicomte s'acheve comme un cauchemar; le Vaux­ le-Vicomte de Nicolas Foucquet ne apres cinq ans d 'une enivrante gestation a dure quelques heures; il restera etemel.31

Furthermore, thejete held on the 17th of August 1661, announced a new era that was to be epitomized in later seventeenth-century monumental garden complexes. These gardens were to become the new stage settings for the personalities of "Le Grand Siecle".

0

0 0 CHAPTER 1WO

The Evolution of Garden Theory in France

On ne connaissait point autrefois ces beaures, tous pares etaient vergers au temps de nos ancetres, tous vergers sont fait pares; le savoir de ces maitres change en jardins royaux ceux des simples bourgeois comme en jardin des dieux il change ceux des rois. Les amours de Psyche et de Cupidon de LaFontaine, Jean (1669)

The French approach to landscape architecture, as we have suggested earlier, was a result of a slow and logical development which began in the sixteenth century and ended around the mid-seventeenth century with the monumental formal garden style. The theories of the gardeners were slowly incorporated and assimilated into the French vocabulary. In effect, some French gardeners actually attempted to imitate their Italian counterparts by reproducing Italianate complexes on French soil. Nevertheless, although it was definitely shaped by Italian ideas, the French garden remained quite distinct for physical, social and political reasons. Life in the French chateau was a matrix of social obligations and formalities of deportment which regimented activities to a degree unknown at Italian courts.1 Furthermore, French gardeners believed in observing tradition and were not so much given to innovation. New concepts were not well received, and quite often, were only incorporated with difficulty. In the Ile-de-France, the weather and topography differed drastically from sun-drenched ; the climate was harsher and the topography flat. Generally the French garden planner followed current fashion, although it becomes evident that there were some avant­ gardistes. In essence, the French landscape architect's chief purpose was to create the ideal backdrop for the ceremonies of court life.2 The tradition of practical gardening had been established in France by the Romans and perpetuated in the monasteries. The cloister gardens were the ancestors of the French Renaissance garden enclosed by galleries. Indeed, to understand the evolution of 12

gardening theories from the Renaissance onwards, one must refer to the late when enclosed gardens were widespread throughout Europe. The monastic system was responsible for the eventual homogeneity. Such gardens were carefully laid out in independent square or rectangular beds, creating a grid-like design. They were first and foremost utilitarian, serving the specific needs of the community and included separate areas for vegetables, for medicinal and for . There was also provision made for an orchard, while the garden provided decorations for the altar. Most monasteries had a fish pond for practical rather than ornamental reasons. 3 Secular, as opposed to monastic gardens, were either cultivated within or near the confines of the chiiteau{ort to provide sustenance in time of siege. Where secular non­ utilitarian gardens existed, they took on the form of a relatively small enclosed area reminiscent of the monastic gardens.

THE INFLUENCE FROM ITALY Italian influences reached France through embassies, trade and sporadic invasion and were slowly incorporated into the culture of sixteenth-century France.4 French gardeners created their own "renaissance" by adapting Italian contributions so as to form a new garden type which answered the needs of a different time and place. Nevertheless, as traditionalists, they retained some ties to the medieval world. The invasion of Naples in 1494, by Charles VIII, King of France resulted in the first significant interaction between France and Italy. Charles spent the winter of that year in Naples and could not help but marvel at the exquisite garden of Poggio Reale. As an "Earthly Paradise", unlike anything the Valley could rival, it is, therefore, not difficult to understand why this site captured Charles's imagination. Its villa and garden, decorated with fountains and , had been designed to convey luxury and splendour, and to serve as a setting for theatre and other courtly entertainment. In addition, an arcaded surrounded by four tiers of seats was attached to the palace. When necessary, this "amphitheatre" could be flooded for water spectacles (naumachia). One side of the courtyard opened onto a garden through which one could see a vista of Mount Vesuvius. Within this space, a sheltered a centrally placed 0 fountain, and the grounds were decorated with fish ponds and canals-- features that were 13

to appear later in French gardens. The very idea that artists and craftsmen could create c such a fanciful version of Paradise on earth was a revelation to Charles, and one to be emulated.5 When Charles returned to France the following year, he brought back, along with his booty the gardener, Pacello de Mercogliano, who was then given the task of improving the royal houses and gardens at Blois, Gaillon and Amboise. At Blois, Dom Pasello tried to detach the medieval-like garden from the confines of the fortified chateau by extending it beyond the cramped space within the castle walls.(fig.2) This first "Italian Renaissance" venture created an important legacy: a garden designed to a new scale; that is, a compact unit embellished with and fountains in the Italian manner. It was an important advance on the earlier existing French gardens. Although, upon closer inspection of du Cerceau's engravings of Blois, one still finds vestiges of French conservatism. Certain medieval features were retained: the enclosed garden within the chateau's precincts; the parterres, evenly distributed on both sides of the central allee; a trellised arcade flanked all four sides of the garden; and a wooden pavilion housed the central fountain. It was a simple geometric design which included several focalizing 0 elements. According to Adams, this innovation in gardening establishes at an early date the link with the seventeenth-century classic jardin de la raison.6 Though "modern" in outlook, Blois was still enclosed, and thus, reminiscent of the protective cloistered atmosphere of the medieval hortus.1 Indeed, the end product was very different from Italian prototypes despite the efforts of the Italian craftsmen.

FRANCESCO COLONNA'S HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), written by Francesco Colonna, a Dominican monk in Venice, was destined to exert a profound influence on the decorative elements of sixteenth-century French gardens. 8 Having been popular in Italy, this strange was even more successful in France where, in 1546, it was published as Le Songe de Poliphile.9 As a romance following the traditional form of Le Roman de la Rose, the story explains in allegorical terms the wanderings of Poliphilus in search of his ideal love Polia. Interspersed throughout the text are references to gardens decorated with fountains, 0 , sculptures, parterres and other features of garden design. These were to be 14

significant for sixteenth and seventeenth-century France with regard to both landscape theory and decoration. 10 Among the garden features mentioned by Colonna, work held a prominent position. It was usually of two types: one clipped to imitate buildings; the other cut in the shape of . French gardeners preferred "vegetal architecture" but baulked at the fanciful forms which Colonna occasionally recommended for and bushes. Therefore, later topiary work in the French formal gardens was invariably in architectural or geometric shapes. 11 Water, another major element in this romance, was usually found in the guise of decorative fountains whose visual and auditory qualities could "magically" transform the environment. Following Colonna's idea, the fountain up to this point utilitarian, became a display and a work of art purely for pleasure. In the seventeenth century, patrons such as Foucquet, obsessed with producing great water spectacles, spared no expense to organize extravagant hydraulic displays. Vaux-le-Vicomte is especially noteworthy in this regard. The ornamental parterre is a salient feature in Colonna's descriptions and, as a 0 result, French gardens owe an everlasting debt to Le Songe de Poliphile for this feature. Colonna compares parterres to tapeti or carpets, though it appears that the patterns did not originate in gardens. According to Verey, such designs are found in Italian embroidery, lacework, , strapwork in wooden panelling and in ceiling and decorative plasterworkP It is thus incorrect, to assume that the idea of the parterre, with its decorative pattern of flowers and , was imported into France by Charles when he returned with Pacello da Mercogliano, since there is no conclusive evidence to support this supposition either in descriptive writing or in the visual data.13 Colonna 's interpretation of the ancient world in Le Songe de Poliphile also had lasting influence. He refers to the Classical past not as a guide for life but rather as a substitute for the real world. In Colonna's new reality, he imagines that all of life's desires could be satisfied.14 As a result, his continued to be available well into the seventeenth century. Following Martin's three editions, new translations appeared in 1600 and in 1657. It was then published as Le tableau des riches inventions.15 This new version 0 may explain why seventeenth-century society approached antiquity with a "romantic" 15

rather than an archaeological attitude. The intention was never to reproduce faithfully the Classical world, but rather, to learn from the ancients the qualities of precision and clarity. One should also keep in mind that the youth of the seventeenth century (including a young Nicolas Foucquet) was educated by Jesuits who focused their teachings on knowledge of the ancient period. 16 Children read , were taught Greek and Roman mythology, learned history from Livy, oratory from Cicero, and ethics from Seneca. Society and art were fed and nurtured by the Classical world.17 Later, around mid-century, Nicolas Foucquet and his friends, Les Precieux, were to pursue and recreate this enchanting atmosphere in Vaux-le-Vicomte'sjardin de plaisir.

FRENCH SIXTEENTH-CENTURY PROTO-FORMAL GARDENS Following the assimilation of Italian theories, the French garden's prime function and reason for existence was as a pleasure retreat Therefore, as garden settings became more elaborate, decorative elements such as symbolic devices, pseudo-classical settings, , ornamental water, artificial hills and spectacular pageantry increased in luxury and profusion. Garden art gradually became directed towards aesthetic, intellectual and political ends. Furthermore, as Nature reigned supreme, it also succumbed to the whims of the exalted. 18 The chateau at Ancy-le-Franc, begun in 1546 and built according to Sebastiano Serlio's scheme, is one of the earliest examples of the emerging new French style.(fig.3) The plan illustrates Serlio' s desire to make palace and gardens appear as a single, inseparable unit. One thus fmds a strict axial arrangement which cuts through the centre of the chateau, descends a few steps into the garden proper, and continues, via a centralized allee, toward the site's furthest boundaries. Not a single element is allowed to disturb the regularity and symmetry. During the Renaissance, Italian landscape architects usually built their gardens on hilly sites in order to have dramatic or panoramic vistas of the countryside. In compa­ rison, French gardeners were restricted to either predominantly flat or slightly undulating terrain. Since they believed a garden could be more enjoyable if viewed from different levels, the French conceived of methods entirely different from those of their Italian 0 counterparts in order to achieve the same visual effects. 16

The site at Ancy-le-Franc was quite flat, making it difficult for Serlio to create an elevated vantage point to view the garden. His ingenious solution was to surround the chateau by a moat, a device indigenous to Medieval France. 19 The palace, consequently, sat up on a raised terrace surrounded by water. This "platform" provided not only a pleasant walkway around the building itself, but also, more importantly, the desired elevation to allow the onlooker a view of the parterres below. This terracing at Ancy-le­ Franc became prototypical for later French formal gardens, such as Liancourt and Vaux.20 Ancy-le-Franc demonstrates an important advance over earlier Italian-influenced French Renaissance gardens such as Blois. Man was now the centre of the universe and no longer needed to fear the forces of nature. The palace and garden symbolized the power that the master of the house could exert over the surrounding landscape.21 At Ancy, in trying to emulate the Italian garden formula, the French architects and gardeners inadvertantly invented a purely native style which answered the needs of this new time and place. The gardening innovations were to have a strong influence upon the seventeenth century, particularly with respect to the development of the jardin de plaisance. Remodeled in 1547 and habitable by 1558, Catherine de Medici's Montceaux-en­ Brie was a direct heir to Ancy-le-Franc. It is widely accepted that Perelle's engraving depicts the basic form of the layout as it existed during Catherine's reign. Even though Perelle's view is distorted and exaggerated, it does present a quasi-accurate picture of the site.(fig.4) The chateau stood on a wide platform surrounded by a balustrade, which, in turn, provided for an uninterrupted view of both the V alley and the gardens descending towards two large terraces. Below, the main allee extended at a right angle to the building. The lay-out was contrived to delight the eye and to expand the mind. With the terracing, there was now a strong quality in the sweep of the axial line running across the flat garden. This, in turn, led the eye toward the boundaries of the garden and on into the surrounding countryside. As a result, Montceaux-en-Brie, with its successive series of garden terraces connecting with stairs (each with its own ornaments of grottos, fountains, and water pieces), and organized on a steep central axial line, provides space in which the spectator is forced to participate actively. The garden is experienced by 0 moving through it, rather than by merely contemplating it from a fixed viewpoint. This 17

intricate ceremonial choreography of controlled vistas and movement anticiaptes the 0 French formal garden structures of the seventeenth century. 22

THE GARDEN THEORISTS During the first quarter of the seventeenth century, the axially oriented jardin de plaisir, with sweeping views over the landscape, had come into being, albeit, in a some­ what confused state. While some French gardeners at the time were making exact copies of the great Italian gardens, others were simultaneously attempting to evolve their own version of a native garden style. Italian decorative elements and theories, assimilated since Charles's invasion, were more or less transformed to suit the demands of a new time and place. The jardin de plaisir, as we think of it today, emerged out of this confusion of ideas, old and new. During the latter portion of the sixteenth century, the gardener's job had been to cultivate, not to articulate his ideas about the site's shape and size, and still less, to advise his master on its potential reorganization. As a result, at the end of the sixteenth and at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a succession of highly skilled garden designers and theorists committed their thoughts to paper in a series of treatises. 0 Written and published over several years, these works along with the practical experience of their authors, eventually helped to create the new garden style. Concurrently, through these men's achievements, the status of the gardener began to change from mere craftsman to that of highly esteemed landscape architect.23 Let us now consider the most important theorists, the precursors to Andre LeNostre, whose concepts and theories established the seventeenth-century monumental French formal garden.

CHARLES ESTIENNE Little evidence of garden theory in France is found during the first half of the sixteenth century. However, in 1554, one of the first agricultural treatises appeared: Charles Estienne's Praedium Rustican.24 Throughout the book, practical ends are clearly uppermost in the author's mind. However, Estienne's description of the parterre and the indicates his different approach. In this section, the author accepts the possibility that a garden might afford "pleasure". He declares, for example, that herbs and 0 flowers arranged in beds are made chiefly "for the contentment and recreation of the 18

sight." 25 Not abandoning entirely the functional aspect, Estienne insists that the flower c garden is designed just as much for the seigneur's recreation as it is for the production of honey. It should be stressed that this treatise was not directed to the wealthy noble who was financially able to construct gardens of great grandeur with little emphasis on practicality. Rather, it found its market in the agrarian middle class whose needs were naturally in the world of utilitarian theory, and not in the cultivation of jardins de plaisir. The book serves to substantiate the logical hypothesis that the art of French gardening was to be evolved only under royal or wealthy patronage, where money was of little consequences. 26 In 1583, Estienne's treatise was revised by his nephew Jean Liebault who incorporated a new section on parterre design. He discusses the merits of placing this well-proportioned decorative element where it could please the eye. The preferred vantage point was from a window, which offered a full view of the entire layout.27 Here, then, though not boldly stated, is the idea of enjoying a garden for its aesthetic arrangement.

AUGUSTINO GALLO c Another book which seems to have enjoyed much popularity during approximately

the same period was Augustino Gallo' s treatise, translated by Fran~ois de Belleforest, published in Paris in 1571 under the French title of Secrest de la vraye .28 In line with other agricultural manuals which appeared during the sixteenth century, it deals basically with the problems of agriculture from every conceivable point of view. Its distinguishing feature, however, was that it divides gardens into two classes: those for pleasure and those for profit. According to Gallo, the pleasure garden is small, and must not be confused with the jardin de plaisir of the wealthy of this period. Gallo focuses on the realization that the lesser nobility and the well-to-do were beginning to differentiate between the strictly practical garden and thejardin de plaisance. Moreover, they could now have their own pleasure retreats on a scale to match their budgets. This distinction represents a major step forward in the cultural development of French gardening during these years. Until the difference between the two garden types was defined, the fundamental aesthetic principles of the French formal gardens could c never have been established. It is, finally, important to acknowledge that the theories 19

discussed above were formulated by neither the nobility nor royalty but by men of lower c origin, the creative and practical gardeners.Z9

OLIVIER DE SERRES Le Theatre d'agriculture et mesnage des champs by Olivier de Serres is perhaps one of the best known and most substantial works (over one thousand pages) ever written in France. Published in 1600 in the form of eight , it was dedicated to Henri IV. One of its portions deals with the layout of the different garden types then in existence, with only a subsection on the pleasure garden. De Serres, however, contributed little that was new. The importance of his work lies in the confidence he expressed in the super­ iority of the new French garden. His writing reflects that certain pride, so essential for the development of a purely French garden style.

One need not travel to Italy or elsewhere to see gardens finely set out, since our own France has won the prize from all other nations ... 30

De Serre' s concept of parterres denotes significant change. Unlike the earlier knot 0 gardens, they are now laid out and bordered in box and relate to the overall design of the garden. They have become an ornamental feature interacting with and complementing the house. The knots shown in the earlier prints by du Cerceau had no special relationship to one another and were actually independant. De Serre's parterres now became a sub­ section of a unified plan. This idea of cohesion is not completely new since some of the key elements had appeared earlier at such gardens as Ancy-le-Franc and Montceaux-en­ Brie. With de Serres, this relationship between house and garden is only explained clearly now for the first time. From de Serres onwards, the word parterre evolved until it came to signify a section of the garden which was to be viewed and appreciated from a higher vantage point. The ideal view should be from a central and commanding position in the house. for example, the piano nobile. The master of the house would receive and dazzle his guests with the magnificence of his possessions and the extent and ordered elegance of his gardens in full view from the window. This brings de Serres to reflect upon the problem of the physical relationship between the spectator and the garden. In so doing, he becomes the first gardener to explain the necessity of adjusting layout proportions so 0 as to offset the negative effects of perspective. He maintains that if the parterres are to 20

be seen from a distance, the rows should be further apart. Or, if they are closer to the 0 viewer, then the space between sections should be narrower. Lastly, the thickness of the shrubs should be proportionate to the area occupied by the compartment. Such important observations reveal (for the first time in french garden literature) an awareness of perspective in the field of garden design. Not until Andre LeNostre, about mid-century, will this aspect be consistently considered.31 Some of de Serres's parterre designs, reproduced in his book, were actually taken from plans created by Claude Mallet the Elder, an important gardener who was commissioned to refurbish various royal domains.32 De Serres' s acceptance of free-standing decorative and architectural features as an integral part of the garden further contributed to the development of the jardin de plaisir.

Statues, columns, pyramids, , ... the richness of whose various colors renders the garden most magnificent. 33

CLAUDE MOLLET THE ELDER Claude Mallet the Elder's Le theatre des plans et jardinages (written around 1615, but only published post-humously in 1652), is important because it became the "bible" 0 of the parterrist.34 In our present survey, we should examine Mallet's treatise prior to J acques Boyceau' s book, since like de Serres' s work, it recalls the previous fifty years of Renaissance gardening practice. Furthermore, Mallet's manual was already completed when Boyceau published his treatise during the 1630's. Mallet wrote for landscape architects and was not concerned with either the architectural framework of the garden, or its ornamentation unless it were vegetal. The book looks back over half a century of gardening practice and contains a wealth of detail and personal reminiscences. Its greatest value lies in the fact that in it one finds a resume of the "modern" refinements which Mallet was advocating during the second decade of the seventeenth century.35 Since his work only appeared in 1652, four years after his death, his main influence came through the actual work he carried out during his lifetime. 36 The significant changes he advocated were: to place the parterre de broderie proportionately on either side of the central altee; to emphasize the central axis; to accentuate side-allees by flanking them with rows of trees and ; and to set the bos­ c quet as a backdrop for the parterre. 21

During the 1580's, a new trend begins in France. Mollet explains when parterres, hitherto small and divided up into geometric patterns of different designs, became integral parts of a new innovative layout, with the broderie patterns now complementing the house. Mollet also claims to have been inspired by the ideas brought back from Italy by Estienne du Perac. The latter had returned to the Chateau d' Anet in 1582. There, Moll et learnt how to create this decorative feature directly from Du Perac. A few decades later, Mollet recalls when he began to do the broderies while using box, his most influential contribution:

I have always continued since to work on a large scale ifaire des grands volumes) ... so that I no longer stopped at making compartments in little squares, one of them one way and another in another.

At the time I began to make the first compartimens en broderie, box was still rarely used, because few people of rank wished to have box (due to its strong odor) planted in their gardens, so that I planted my comparti­ mens with several kinds of garden which gave a variety of green. But such plants cannot last long on this French climate, because of the extremes of heat and cold that we have ... 37

0 The above quote identifies the problem of having to find a new method of planting to avoid the recurring expense of replacement. Mallet had to find a plant that would endure the changes of the harsh, French climate. He, thus, chose box, and this he claimed, was a novelty. 38 In order to make the elaborate patterns of the parterre stand out, the backgrounds were often filled with colored earth or colored stones. Thus, Mallet created a decorative and lasting section of garden which closely resembled embroidery work. 39 As chief gardener at the Tuileries from 1595 until his death in 1648, Claude Mallet the Elder exerted great influence on later gardeners. His innovations contained several elements which helped in the development of the ultimate French formal gardens of the mid-seventeenth century. During the second decade, gardeners were already imitating Mallet, who had no choice but to teach the art which he had developed. Indeed, it was one of his pupils, Andre LeNostre, who was to succeed him as chief gardener, contrary to the accepted pattern of inheritance from father to son. c JACQUES BOYCEAU, SIEUR DE LA BARAUDERIE Among the landscape theorists and innovative ideas previously discussed, there 22 emerges Jacques Boyceau. He epitomizes much of the history and mores of his time. Boyceau is at once the Protestant man of action, the philosopher, the poet, the botanist, the scientist, the multifaceted artist, who, in addition, is as much at home on the battlefield as in the garden.40 Boyceau speaks fluently in the language of a fully developed seventeenth-century garden theorist and practitioner who uses both past and contemporary theories and ideas. Boyceau's Traire du jardinage selon les raisons de la nature et de I'art (published posthumously in 1638), was written during the 1630's.41 The title suggests an intellectual approach hitherto unknown in French garden writings. His manual reflects a rare knowledge of science and philosophy together with artistic prowess. Prior to Boyceau, books on gardening theory were devoted largely to practical aspects, in essence more functional than artistic. In writing for the aristocracy, who wished to have a jardin de plaisir at their favorite retreats, Boyceau transformed this old-fashioned approach. Boyceau's association with the French nobility is reflected in the following statement, which, though foreign to our notions, states clearly for whom the book was intended:

Mais si nous voulons faire des Iardins que soient pour donner plaisir, ils ne seront convenants a gens de basse condition, ains seulement aux Princes, Seigneurs, & Gentilhommes de moyens.42

The treatise is at once philosophical, practical and aesthetic. The tenor of Boyceau' s landscape doctrine indicates a true worship of splendour whose underlying purpose is not utility, but rather beauty and pleasure. Boyceau establishes landscape design as an art form and formulates its rules. Some concepts were borrowed from previous gardeners, others, were practiced during Boyceau's time, and finally, some seem to have sprung from his own imagination.43 By the 1630's Boyceau's work marks the end of the French Renaissance and steps forward into the Baroque period. One would need to make a complete analysis of the theories mentionned above in order to understand the full extent of Boyceau's legacy to LeNostre and his peers. However, only a few of his most important ideas are germane to this present thesis. Boyceau clearly changes the status of the gardener from craftsman to landscape architect, now recognized as a highly esteemed profession. Until Boyceau, the architect c had determined the disposition of the garden, while the gardener did the actual physical 23

work. By the 1630's, Boyceau advocated a ~ type of gardener with universal 0 knowledge. In his rules he draws an interesting portrait of future candidates for the position of gardener:

... prenons aussi un jeune gar~on de bonne nature, de bon esprit, fils d'un bon travailleur, non delicat, ains ayant apparence qu'il aura bonne force de corps avec l'age ... 44

The boy chosen should not be allowed to grow up merely strong and untutored. On the contrary, he is to be given a comprehensive plan of study which Boyceau considered essential to the art of gardening. The youth is first taught to read and write. Lessons in design and draftsmanship then follow: drawing taught the proper proportions for garden construction while design helped to determine grace and harmony. A gardener ignorant of geometry and design could only produce works lacking in originality. He is incapable of differentiating between the fundamentel or superfluous. The study of architecture is also recommended to the trainee so as to be able to supervise the construction of garden pavilions. In addition to all of this knowledge is the practical training:

... il commence par la bescles a labourer... apprenant a bien dresser les 0 terres, plier, redresser, & lier le bois pour les ouvrages de relief: tracer sur terres les desseins ... planter, & tondre les parterres,... & plusieurs autres particularitez qui regardent les embelissements des iardins de plaisir... 45

Finally, Boyceau expects the young gardener to understand the concept of beauty so that he may be capable of choosing only harmonious elements. As a result, the gardener should be intellectually capable of selecting and translating the designs of others, even though he, himself, might be unable to create a garden from his own imagination. Without Boyceau' s recommendations for specialized training, the profession of landscape gardening might never have come into existance. Without Boyceau, the French formal garden based on discipline, intellect, geometry, draftsmanship, and architecture might not have emerged.46 From the beginning, the concepts of symmetry and balance were important in French gardening. However, there is a difference between the regularity, characteristic of Boyceau, and that of his predecessors. Boyceau's compositions were to be constructed as 0 closely knit units in which nothing could be subtracted from the design without altering the whole. Each individual section forming the garden, was to relinquish its individuality 24

in order to create a unified whole. To avoid monotony, Boyceau cautions the gardener to diversify the underlying subsections so as to achieve a homogeneous comprehensive unit without being repetitive. According to Boyceau, the ideal garden plan combined both flat and hilly terrain. The owner would then have the advantage of the inherent characteristics of each type. A raised portion could serve as a platform from which one could survey the layout and division of the entire garden so as to comprehend how well each individual element blended in to the whole. To avoid the monotony of the flat portion, the gardener would use a great variety of decorative elements with emphasis on the parterre de broderie as the most beautiful detail in the composition. Boyceau constantly strove to avoid the repetition so often characteristic of earlier gardens. For this reason, he condemns using only straight lines in the designs of the parterre de broderie. To create variety, he advises a combination of both straight and curved lines as well as the placement of obliques among squares. As a result, his predo­ minantly curvilinear patterns are more elaborate and decorative than earlier knot patterns. In his designs, straight lines control and give cohesion, whereas free-flowing lines fill the 0 interior space. The final product resembled elaborate embroidery work. Boyceau emphasizes the correlation of garden and building, although he devotes little space to the discussion of harmonious interrelationship perhaps because the idea was already well established in French garden practice. What he does stress, however, is of correct proportions so that the gardener can produce the desired monumental effect. Boyceau mentions that the measurements and size of the site, both width and length, are dictated by the correct placement of the a/tees, which are usually situated either parallel, or at a right angle to the corps de logis. Hence, the actual arrangement of parterres, a/tees, and is created with the shape and dimensions of the building in mind and, as a result, appear as a logical continuation of the palace into the landscape. Both Claude Mollet and Jacques Boyceau were concerned with the proper dimensions of the principal . They took into account both the distortions created by perspective and the possibilities of optics. These aspects had also preoccupied painters, theatrical designers and scientists during the first half of the seventeenth century. Among c garden theorists, Boyceau is the first to present the most elaborate discussion on the 25

proper width and length that one should accord to walkways. He also advises 0 practitionners to be careful about correct proportions for avenues (whether covered or not) since this might affect the visual impact. Optics and perspective were to be manipulated so as to open the end of the central axis onto a grand vista of the landscape beyond the confines of the garden. The illusion created would stretch the view into infinity. This control of space was to limit and direct the spectators's vision by viewing one aspect of the garden at a time. As a result, the subsections of the garden, such as cabinets and bosquets etc ... , were meant to be explored separately, either by circulating through the garden or by looking at these areas from the palace terrace. Also essential to achieving this new monumentality, was the elimination of the fanciful topiary which had been an important part of late sixteenth-century French gardens. To create the effect of grandeur, Boyceau stressed the importance of relief, that is, fountains, sculpture, and plant material. These items were especially important because relief elements were not simply to produce a pleasing balance of horizontal and vertical forms, but also to allow the spectator to comprehend the garden. According to Boyceau one should:

Les corps relevez aussi ont grande grace dans les jardins, & baillent grand soulagement par leurs couverts et ombrages, retenant en partie la veue, & 1'arrestant pour estre considerez, & faire considerer les autres ouvrages qu'ils environnent.47

And so carefully situated, these features served to indicate and orchestrate the correct "stops" and "starts" of the promenade which became part of the French formal garden experience. According to Adams the garden should present an "ideal world" where rhythmic walks and pauses would induce contemplation and the pleasures of the senses. This arrangement was to reach its apogee in LeNostre's gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte.48 The new feeling of monumentality which exists in Boyceau' s compositions is one of his most important achievements. Previous gardens did have several monumental elements, but none of these gardens had been designed with the same feeling of ampleur. For example, what distinguishes the Chateau-Neuf from the Luxembourg is the different approach towards the effect of grandeur. In the former, in spite of its vast dimensions, c everything is conceived on the scale of man. The terracing emphasizes the sense of division giving the impression of a number of small elements which, at best, convey only 26

a sort of additive process. The units formed by the terraces break down into even smaller 0 components, and one feels that this process of division could almost continue endlessly. But at the Luxembourg, paths cut the near-level terrain into regularly segmented rectangles, each devoted to some particular decorative program. These smaller divisions contribute to the progressive building-up of a monumentally conceived whole. The Luxembourg gardens, though created on the scale of man, give quite another impression. The garden was devised as an entire organic unit and, although the parts are few, and each of great extent, the resulting grandeur will dwarf the individual in comparison to his surroundings. 49 The previously discussed principles, treated individually or collectively were Boyceau' s very real and lasting contributions to French gardening. They paved the way for LeNostre's grandiose gardens.

ANDRE MOLLET In 1651, Andre Mollet published Le jardin de plaisir in French, Swedish and German. 50 It is linked in thought and concept to the theoretical and practical achievements 0 of such earlier theorists as Charles Estienne, Olivier de Serres, Claude Mollet the Elder and Jacques Boyceau. There is nothing new in his theories, yet, as a gardener, he had a greater influence throughout Europe than did his colleagues. From 1633 to 1635 Andre Mollet worked for Prince Frederic-Henri of Nassau in Holland. He created gardens at the Palace of Buren and at the new Palace of Honselaerdijk. Both were designed in the latest French style as advocated by Mollet the Elder.51 Andre returned to Paris to the Tuileries from 1635 to 1647, and during this period was able to learn, first hand, the latest gardening concepts. It is highly possible that he discussed Boyceau's treatise with the theorist himself. Finally, in 1648 he went to work at the Swedish court, remaining there until 1653. Following this, he left the mainland to work in until his death in 1655. Unlike Boyceau who remained in France, Mollet travelled from country to country and from court to court leaving behind him a variety of gardens in the French formal style. Later, his short treatise had greater influence than the work of previous theorists c since it was published in several languages, thus reaching a far greater audience. His last 27

important legacy are the engravings accompanying the text. These are a triumph of drafting. He surpasses all earlier theorists in the variety of motifs for the parterre de broderie, bosquets and water gardens. The Tuileries is the model for Andre Mallet's archetypal garden: a rectangular area, subdivided by allees into a regular grid-like plan, hierarchically arranged in relation to the house or palace, with parterre de broderie and

2 bosquets symetrically placed about a central axis. 5 His illustrations were made to provide practical and general instructions for gardeners who never had the opportunity to see a garden in the French style. They represent the first published ground plans of the final form of the Frenchjardin de plaisir. Mallet's theories and principles equalled LeNostre's, though he failed to put them into practice as well as LeNostre did.

c

c c CHAPTER THREE

ANDRE LENOSTRE HEIR TO A TRADITION

Coinciding with Andre LeNostre's lifetime, the development of the classic French garden was to continue between 1613 and 1700. The practical work carried out, the successive treatises, and the acceptance that gardens now ranked with architecture, painting and sculpture as major art forms, was the confluence of events that made LeNostre's dynamic compositions possible. 1 In his capacity as gardener, the domains which had belonged to the French kings were also his own heritage. His predecessors had worked the soil and shaped these lands as he himself was to do. He knew from hearsay and from visual evidence how the kings and aristocracy had changed their chateaux from fortified castles to pleasant residences. But LeNostre would now produce spectacular gardens characteristic of the attitudes of his time.2 Under LeNostre a new era would c begin. Andre LeNostre son of Jean LeNostre, (fig.5) was born at the home of his father in the Tuileries gardens, on the 12th of March 1613.3 Near the end of the sixteenth cen­ tury, Jean had inherited from his father, Pierre, both the position of Premier Jardinier du Roi and the responsibility of six of the great parterres of the Tuileries. Andre followed in his father's footsteps as was the accepted practice. However, unlike Mallet the Elder, Jean LeNostre never aspired to publish a treatise. He was content to provide his son with a practical education. Andre's first steps were undoubtedly taken in the Tuileries gardens where he lived with his family. According to French custom, the gardeners and their were housed inside or near the garden area for which they were responsible.4 During the first quarter of the seventeenth century the palace of the Tuileries was a great hub of activity. There, many of the great philosophers, writers, and artists congregated in order to be close to the affairs of the court. The intellectual interchange was considerable. It was one of the motivating factors behind the development of the c rational aesthetic which was to dictate the life of seventeenth-century France.5 At the 29

Tuileries, Andre was not only in one of the most beautiful royal domains in France, he c was also surrounded by the leading practioners and theorists of the time; men like de Serres, Mollet the Elder, and Boyceau. Among the gardeners, there was no evident seniority. Each aided by assistants and apprentices, had charge of some part of the garden. The Tuileries and the Luxembourg were considered at the time the most important domains in France. The former retained the atmosphere of a small rural village because the gardeners worked together in close relationship. The family nucleus was important. Possibly this prevailing professional and social setting was conducive to a free exchange of ideas. Activities were supervised by the lntendant general des jardins du roi, who was not a gardener per se, though he had to possess a thorough knowledge of gardening practices. As a youth, Andre had first-hand experience of the successive transformations made to the Tuileries by both his father and the best gardeners in France. Over the years these men modified and embellished the site, applying the theories discussed above. LeNostre's intelligent and enquiring mind was inevitably influenced and impressed by the new discoveries which were to remain with him throughout his career. Although very 0 little is known of his flrst lessons, it is not difficult to imagine that Andre's father and the other gardeners initiated him to the art of gardening while he helped out with the various daily tasks necessary for the upkeep of the Tuileries. According to Karling, Claude Mollet the Elder probably taught not only his sons, but also young Andre. Evidently, both families were very close since Mollet's wife was Andre's godmother.6 Jacques Boyceau, lntendants des Jardins du Roi, was highly influential in Andre's future course of study. Even though Boyceau's treatise was only published in 1638, by 1630 his theories had already been enthusiastically received at the Tuileries, by Mollet the Elder and Jean LeNostre.7 Following Boyceau's recommendations, Jean LeNostre directed his son towards a training that encompassed more than a mere knowledge of the practical aspects of gardening. He opted for the new professional training then in vogue for landscape architects which included the study of mathematics, geometry, architecture and painting. It is unlikely that Andre thought of becoming either a painter or an architect though he certainly saw the advantages of understanding these disciplines for his c profession. 30

During the 1630's Andre spent six years studying with Simon Vouet, painter-in­ c chief to Louis XIII. At this time he learned draftsmanship, harmonious proportions, and color values-- aspects of art he would use to advantage in his gardens. Under Vouet, LeNostre also had access to a stimulating collection of drawings, sketches and engravings that his teacher had made and collected during his extensive travels in Italy (1614 to 1627) and in the Near East. Vouet' s drawings of Byzantine and Turkish gardens, with their designs and profusion of water displays, were as much a part of Andre's studies as were his collection of engravings of Italian architecture. During this period, Andre met several young men who were to become future colleagues: Charles LeBrun, Eustache LeSueur, Pierre Mignard, and Gabriel Perelle.8 Following his apprenticeship in Vouet' s studio, LeN ostre studied architecture under Fram;ois Mansart.9 During this training, he assimilated the geometry necessary to be able to choose sites wisely; to create monumental compositions; to understand harmony and proportions; and to be able to coordinate architectural garden features. It is by combining all these disciplines-- gardening, architecture and painting-- that LeNostre was able to produce grandeur and unity in the overall designs of his lay-outs.10 c Furthermore, the popular treatises on the subject of optics, which began to appear in France during the 1630s, complemented his education. The most widely read of these

were Pere Jean-Fran~tois Niceron 's La perspective curieuse (1638), Pere Marin Mersenne' s Questions inouyes: ou, recreation des scavans (1634) and Rene Descartes's Discours de la methode (1637). In chapter two of the thesis, it was noted that de Serres, Mollet the Elder, and Boyceau all approached this topic in a rather superficial manner in their respective manuals. This despite the fact that in 1576, Jacques Androuet du Cerceau had already published his Lecons de perspective positive, which was one of the first books in France to deal with the problem of optics. 11 The discovery of the principles of linear perspective during the Renaissance had a revolutionary effect not only upon painting and architectural theories, but also on land­ scaping design. In the search for methods to transform the real world by creating illusions of indefinitely extended space, both theatre and gardens were shaped by common tradi­ c tions and innovations. In the late sixteenth century, the theatrical use of the techniques 31

of perspective in France seems to have been largely confined to the staging of Royal Entries and to temporary backdrops set-up in the streets and in palace gardens. At the turn of the seventeenth century, Italian designers were drawn to Paris where they worked on court pageants and theatrical productions. Several of the stage devices and constructions used were drawn from the vocabulary: temples, grottos, and fountains. Therefore, the cross-over from one field to the other took place easily. As entertainment extravaganzas became more complex in scale and design, larger spaces were needed and the garden was thus chosen as the appropriate setting.12 During the first half of the seventeenth century, three important principles had been borrowed from the theories of theatre perspective. The first established a fixed eye­ point where perspective lines converged to a single vanishing point. It was a complex issue in the theatre because one had to set the exact relationship between the viewer (i.e., the audience) and the stage. A similar problem arose in the garden, but here, to create the desired illusion, it was compounded by the sheer magnitude of the space to be organized. The same rules that had been applied to the theatre were employed in the garden, though, the single unifying point of view was not within the site itself, but rather beyond in the surrounding countryside. The eye was unknowingly led towards one spot on the distant horizon. At Vaux-le-Vicomte, LeNostre fixed the focus beyond the Hercules statue. The second principle of perspective required that the entire space be unified by one plane and one frame. In actuality, this represented the treatment of three-dimensional space in a two-dimensional manner. At Vaux, LeNostre resolved this problem by utilizing palissades on either side so as to frame and control the enclosed space. The last principle involved a succession of terraces as rhythmic planes, parallel to the palace, in order to control depth.13 In the 1630s, when LeNostre launched his career, his landscape designs were created not so much for temporary fetes but as permanent backdrops. Under Le Nostre, the garden became the extension of the palace interior. The perpetual opera called la Representation unfolded daily on both these "stages". The members of the household were the actors and the constant display of pomp and ceremony provided the motion and the denouement. One should picture the a/lees as crowded with the aristocracy of France, the c formal spaces as settings for magnificent ceremony, and the green of the 32 bosquets full of people, gay, lively, intelligent crowds which dispelled with a witticism c the air of tranquil melancholy that haunts the park today. 14 In addition, endless festivities enlivened life at the country chateau. Plays were staged in shady outdoor theatres; minia­ ture ships waged war in the canals; music and masterful displays of fireworks filled summer evenings. Such were some of the innumerable activities one could expect at Vaux -le-Vicomte.15 Unfortunately, LeNostre never wrote down his ideas about garden planning. Only a few of his authentic designs are extant and very little information can be gathered from the few letters that he wrote. One of his pupils, Alexandre Le Blond (under the name of Dezalliers d' Argenville), penned a treatise in 1709, La theorie et la pratique du jardinage, which stated the principles that governed LeNostre's work.16 Despite the efforts of modern scholars, LeNostre's first garden creations and the early years of his career remain obscure. 17 In 1635, the first of a number of references places Andre in the household of Gaston d'Orleans as jardinier de Mr frere du roi. 18 In 1637, Andre succeeded his aging father at the Tuileries with the title of dessinateur des plants et jardins du Roy. 19 In 1649, he was designated Gardener-in-Chief of the Tuileries c after the death of Claude Mollet the Elder. Lastly, in 1657, he was appointed contrOleur general des batiments du roi. This post gave him much wider powers and henceforth classed him among the king's architects.20 Andre LeNostre could be considered a "late bloomer" because he was over forty when he began to create his great masterpieces. By that time, he had acquired the expertise, while the environment was propitious. In 1657, LeNostre was hired by Nicolas Foucquet to work on his first acknowledged chef-d' oeuvre, Vaux-le-Vicomte. He was not, then, the relatively unknown individual described by garden historians as Foucquet's "discovery". Foucquet was perceptive enough to realize LeNostre's potential and to capitalize on it. From the very beginning, Foucquet likely saw the garden as a new "stage" for living. LeNostre was ready to provide that "stage." Following his triumph at Vaux-le-Vicomte, LeNostre enjoyed one notable success after another. During the rest of his career, he continued to develop his new concepts of c landscape gardening into a great crescendo of garden "grand opera". CHAPTER FOUR

Vaux-le-Vicomte: Garden of Illusion

11 me fit voir ... Des lieux que pour leurs beautez j'aurois pfi croire enchantez si Vaux n'estoit point de ce monde. Le Songe de Vaux (1671) LaFontaine, Jean de

Were Vaux-le-Vicomte the sole surviving French seventeenth-century chateaux and gardens, one could still grasp the essence of the period's landscape gardening. The evolu­ tion of theories and practices traced in the previous chapters culminates with LeNostre's Vaux-le-Vicomte. As a landscape architect, LeNostre used the rules so well that his gardens appeared to grow out of the soil as though they were the perfect complement to the land. LeNostre's work was intended for bourgeois patrons, like Foucquet, who wanted to impress the world with their wealth and taste by entertaining on a lavish scale. Vaux was Andre LeNostre's earliest monumental formal garden project. For the c first time, LeNostre and the architect LeVau were offered a "virgin site" and thus the opportunity for an entirely new creation. Armed with Foucquet's enthusiastic endorsement and an apparently inexhaustible source of funds, both LeVau and LeNostre proceeded to transform the terrain. 1 Hills were moved and levelled, valleys filled or made, streams detoured and channelled into new waterways. The essential point about Vaux or any of the period's great classic gardens is that they were not the creation of one artist's vision, but rather the result of a complex, carefully tuned, collective effort by many talented indi­ viduals. In 1652, some five years before Foucquet asked LeNostre to collaborate with Charles LeBrun and Louis LeVau, Charles de Sercy, publisher of Claude Mallet the Elder's Theatre des plans et jardinages, dedicated the garden treatise to Foucquet. In the preface, de Sercy praises Vaux: Vous cherchez dans !'innocence de la vie champestre des douceurs qu'on ne s~auroit rencontrer autre part; et vous prenez plaisir de sortir des Parterres de Thernis, pour entrer dans ces superbes Jardins de Vaux le 0 Vicomte, ou vous faites agreablement combattre 1' Art avec la Nature, et 34

oii vous adjoustez tous les jours de nouvelles beautez et de nouveaux 0 enrichissemens. 2 This would suggest that the basic outline of the garden had already been established before LeNostre's arrival in 1657. Indeed, the practice was to lay out the general dispo­ sition of the site prior to the beginning of construction so that the trees and plants would be mature upon completion of the chateau. In 1660, Mile. de Scudery alluded to the trans­ formation of Valterre (Vaux):

Valterre n'est encore qu'en son enfance, s'il faut ainsi dire, et il y aura autant de difference de ce qu'il est aujourd'huy, a ce qu'il sera un jour, qu'entre une belle fille qui n'a que douze ans, et l'estat oil elle est quand elle en a dix-huit.3 The archetypal French garden, as formulated by Boyceau and Andre Mollet, was a rectangle divided by a/lees into a regular grid pattern with a hierarchy of parts (parterre de broderie, parterre de gazon, , etc ... ) arranged symetrically about the central axis. The axis, then, was made to extend beyond the boundaries of the site. Variety was maintained in the planting and arrangement of the individual sections. The new garden 0 design was the product of early seventeenth-century theories and of the work done at such prototypical sites as the Tuileries and the Luxembourg.4 Around 1611, Marie de' Medici asked Solomon de Brosse and Jacques Boyceau to create a palace and garden-- the Luxembourg-- to be modelled after the Pitti Palace and the of her native .5 While de Brosse produced a palace quite different from the intended Italian model, the Queen also urged Boyceau to study the Boboli gardens designed by Bemardo Buontalenti in the 1560's. It is equally apparent that Marie had little effect upon Boyceau, for the results reveal something new in the finely orchestrated unity between garden and architecture and in the role of architecture to define and control the garden layout. Moreover, the Luxembourg arrangement abandoned the "in scale-of-man" quality of the Boboli design in favor of an obviously French sense of monumentality and grandeur; consequently, Marie de' Medici's Luxembourg became the most important visual resource for French landscape designers. 6 The Luxembourg announced, with its clear organization, the mature French formal style that would culminate in LeNostre's Vaux-le-Vicomte. 35

V AUX-LE-VICOMTE c In contrast to the Luxembourg, what makes V aux so innovative and original is the integrated manner of the garden's subsections. The unity of the design is obvious from any point within the garden, and this was achieved by consistently applying the principles of scientific perspective. Furthermore, like all of LeNostre's compositions, the site was made to be traversed on foot. Vaux' s layout was not to be absorbed at a glance: the garden divulged its secrets only to those who explored it section by section. Since the gardens have undergone drastic changes over the centuries, it is essential to consult two representations, dating from the late 1650's, in order to understand LeNostre's overall scheme: LeNostre's ground plan (fig.6) and Silvestre's engraving of the site (fig.7). Both should be studied simultaneously, as the one complements the other. Taken together they provide the most complete conception of Vaux's gardens. When compared to LeNostre's ground plan, Silvestre's engraving seems much too simple. Silvestre, who usually described a given setting with notable exactness, may have recorded LeNostre's scheme before it had reached its definitive stage. This would account for the fewer paths, the truncated character of the garden's extremities, and the overall 0 missing details. Yet, Silvestre indicates, as LeNostre does not, the patte d' oie arrangement of avenues radiating from the chateau forecourt. These areas would have been the last to receive the designer's attention. On the other hand, LeNostre's drawing bears the imprint of an originator, not a copyist. It is extremely detailed and complete, except for the chateau itself and its im­ mediate surroundings. LeNostre's plan presents the rigid, geometric forms into which the site was organized. Essentially, the gardens are oriented along a single axis, beginning and terminating with a -encircled rond-point. This main avenue continues across the gardens and ends in a wooded park located at a considerable distance from the chateau. The a/lee centrale forms the spine from which other axes radiate: some transverse, others extend on the diagonal. One cannot understand the Seigneurie of Vaux entirely without examining the architecture of the palace and its interior decoration. Vaux the garden is not complete without Vaux the palace. Following seventeenth-century landscape maxims, as evidenced 0 in Mallet the Elder's and Boyceau's theories, the palace and gardens were considered a 36

harmonious whole. c An engraving by Silvestre depicts the chateau's entrance fa9ade and service buildings prior to the installation of an elaborate fence composed of ironwork, giant herms and masonry arches. This print presents a detailed and accurate picture of Vaux as it appears, unchanged, for over two centuries (fig.8). The proportions are harmonious and there is much unity between the chateau and the outlying service buildings. This results from the symmetrical disposition of the service buildings and the pleasing spatial interval between the flanking sections and palace. The service building walls are covered with red brick while the chateau is surfaced with cream-colored limestone. This contrast of mate­ rials enhanced the architectural scheme. Limestone trim was also used to lighten the effect of the brick in the service buildings, and this echoing in turn, unified the whole composition. The mixed architectural style of surface decoration is often referred to as architecture colore and was typical of the Louis XIII period as seen, for example, at Ver­ sailles in the corps-de-logis. Topped by a traditionnal slate roof, the overall design must have been striking in the landscape. Foucquet, avant-gardiste and aware of the latest architectural innovations, would have demanded from LeVau the latest in fashion for the 0 main building.7 Beyond the entrance gateway a gentle slope leads down to the chateau (fig.9). This incline, though slight, emphasizes the rising movement of the monumental, pedestalled building. Only here does one become aware of the moat, for there is no prior suggestion of its presence. Essentially and traditionally French, the front view of the site consists of three main units: the cour d' honneur, the flanking service buildings, and the palace proper. After crossing the moat, one is surprised to enter a sizeable inner area decorated to the left and right with simple but impressive elevated parterres which, in turn, are embellished with pools and fountains. As one advances, the chateau and outlying buildings provide a handsome mask for the garden behind. At the same time, they produce a few tantalizing hints of what lies ahead. To the immediate left and right of the building one catches sight of a manicured landscape; and, through the windows of the vestibule, a view of the gardens beyond. This is pure Baroque theatre! The locations of the interior rooms at Vaux were considered innovative. In the 0 seventeenth century it was usual for State Rooms to be on the second floor or piano 37

nobile. At Vaux they are on the ground leveL Le Vau, however, managed to raise them 0 well above the surrounding garden by the moated platform on which the palace sits. This required height, if one recalls Boyceau's recommendations, was meant to provide for an extensive view of the gardens from each of the principal reception areas.8 Traditionally, the rooms of a palace were only accessible through each other, thus forming an enfilade. At Vaux, LeVau doubled the corps-de-logis, a solution made possible by introducing a vestibule in front of the oval salon. The appartement double was thus created. This architectural innovation was to have fundamental importance for subsequent building developments. By means of secondary staircases, the double corps-de-logis allowed for a practical disposition of apartments which gave privacy. The basic intention was to attain convenience without relinquishing la Representation.9 In 1658, after the palace was built, Foucquet commissioned Charles LeBrun to em­ bellish the interior. While LeBrun did the more important ceiling paintings and adorn­ ments himself, he also directed the young artists who worked on the ornamentation of the panelling. In the neighbouring village of Maincy, Le Brun established a workshop to produce Vaux' s tapestries. After Foucquet' s fall, this factory became the Gobelins in Paris.10 At Vaux, allegorical subjects are mingled with figures from classical mythology in order to glorify Foucquet. Numerous examples of this patronage, both within and without the chateau, are explained and commented upon at great length by Mile. de Scudery in her novel, Clelie. In selecting themes, Vaux' s creators simply followed the Italian decorative tradition found in late sixteenth and early sevententh-century residences and gardens. Furthermore, some of the mythological subject matter was drawn from Cesare Ripa's Iconologia which had been translated into French in 1644.U However, tradi­ tion dictated that in order to maintain harmony with the recreated "classical pagan" envi­ ronment, only indirect allusion need be made to the patron. The interior decoration of the palace is so complex that it warrants meticulous study. However, as this is not the aim of the present thesis, a brief glance at the most important themes must suffice. Foucquet's temporal power, his virtues, talents, sense of justice and clemency are extolled in allegorical terms. To represent these different aspects, the artists made reference to the antique figures of and Hercules. Apollo was a c fitting illustration, for he embodied the rational or enlightened side of man's nature. He 38 also reflected indirectly Foucquet's status as a patron of the arts. 12 On the other hand, the 0 myth of the ancient hero Hercules, particularly his labours in overcoming horrendous obstacles, made him the prime example of moral fortitude and virtU. By the grandeur of his exploits, Hercules achieved immortality and joined the pantheon of ancient deities. 13 This Hercules motif was very popular during the Italian Renaissance. A prime example may be recognized in Niccolo Ill d'Este who, by 1420, with his glorified image as Hercules, helped to propagate this symbolism throughout the continent. 14 Hercules had earned immortality by freeing people from monsters and beasts. At the end of the sixteenth century, Henri IV of Navarre liberated France from rebellion, disorders and fanaticism. Thus, the apotheosis of Henri as Hercules, though merely allegorical, invested the sovereign with a sanctity that rendered certain aspects of absolute monarchy acceptable!5 Is there not a close parallel with Foucquet's deeds? Could he not be said to have freed France from a rebellion, the Fronde, and indirectly restored peace? Such symbolism, explained to Louis XN by LeBrun during the fatal[ete at Vaux, appeared to have angered the young king. During this period it was customary to designate one room of every country chateau as the king's bedchamber in anticipation of 0 royal visits. Certain decorative details of Vaux' s apartment displeased Louis. In the corners of the room were depicted intertwined "F's" on silver shields; the cornice held palms with a small squirrel (Foucquet's symbol) on alternate while the corners held the crenellated tower of Madame Foucquet's coat-of-arms!6 Apparently, these features were not appropriate for the visiting sovereign's room! The Salle des Muses further irritated the king. Here, one encounters a composition in which are found the nine muses; the goddesses of creative inspiration in the arts and the companions of Apollo. At Vaux they are assembled to celebrate Foucquet and, accord­ ing to Felibien, were represented wingless because they had no wish to fly away from the refuge Foucquet offered them. Above, an eagle hovers with a banner streaming from its beak proclaiming "Quo non ascendet? 11 It also carries aloft Foucquet's emblem, the squirrel, to be borne into the highest realm.17 In the Hercules Room, LeBrun painted the apotheosis of Hercules. The hero stands for the virtues of Foucquet triumphing over the serpent of Vice. The chariot is pulled by 0 two portraying Love and Hate which, in turn, are guided and controlled by Rea- 39

son. 18 0 The most important room, and perhaps the most damaging to Foucquet in terms of self-glorification, was the Oval Salon which linked the palace to the garden (fig.lO). This reception area remained unfinished for the 1661 jete. The absence of LeBrun' s ceiling fresco lends emphasis to LeVau's talents as an architect. On the floor, a marble inlay represents a . At ground level, the perimeter of the oval space is marked out by sixteen arcades with an equal number of pilasters filling the space between them. At first floor level, caryatids represent the twelve months and the labours associated with each. The four seasons, fitting subjects to connect to the adjoining garden, are also depicted. These figures continue the upward movement begun by the pilasters, while over the second cornice a great cupola takes shape. It was here that LeBrun had planned to paint Le Palais du Soleil et Le Cours de 1' Annee, a project so controversial it was never allowed beyond the drawing stage (fig.ll). It was, however, described in great detail in Mlle. de Scudery's Clelie which had been printed in March 1660.19 LeBrun's "Palace of the Sun" consisted of a colonnade supporting a barrel-vaulted portico echoing LeVau's design for the room below. In the modello one can identify a vast array of personifica­ tions: the Olympian gods, the Months, the Seasons, the Days, the Hours, and the Year, this last symbolized by a great serpent unfolding along the perimeter of the design. In the center, a new rising "star" (the squirrel) is received by Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn at the command of Apollo: ... j'ay a vous dire que le Soleil represente Cleonime (Foucquet), qui selon 1, estendiie de ses grands employs, fait tout, luit par tout, fait du bien a tout, et travaille continuellement pour l'utilite et l'embellissement de l'Univers.20

According to Hautecoeur, the sun is the symbol of the supreme being, of Reason and Truth. These are the same Apollo and sun that Louis XIV would adopt as his personal emblems. In the post-Copernican universe of the seventeenth century, this reference was both a fitting emblem for Foucquet as patron of the arts and, later, for Louis as the absolute monarch.21 No exists to explain comprehensively the iconography of Vaux' s interior decoration, nor is there any literature which discusses the origin of Vaux' s 0 innovative Italianate Oval Salon (fig.l4). Architectural historians have presented three 40

hypotheses, which though lacking convincing, supporting evidence, do provide some 0 insight. According to Gebelin, Palladio's influence is manifest in a number of ways: in the

use of massive pilasters; in the statues on the peristyles (recumbent on the garden fa~ade, standing on the garden side); and in the principal circular reception room occupying the entire height of the building from ground level to dome.22 Here, Vaux is reminiscent, in a general sense, of the Villa Rotonda at Vicenza. Alternately, Thomas Glen's theory suggests a strong likeness in ground plan between Borromini's San Agnese in in and Vaux's Salon Oval.23 The earliest document relating to Vaux is a contract annotated by Foucquet and signed by the architect Louis LeVau on 2 August 1656. An agreement between LeVau and the contractor, Villedo, was dated eight days later, thus establishing the official beginning of construction.24 The curved plan at Vaux, with the concave tripartite entrance to the vestibule and the projecting convex Salon Oval, is characteristic of the curved, High associated with Borromini's San Agnese, circa 1655.25 The one year interval between the publication of Borromini' s ground plan for San Agnese and Vaux' s 0 construction left plenty of time for one monument to influence the other. Though LeVau was never in Italy, there was no shortage of visual information. He might have been aware of the latest innovations through books published and prints circulated. As well, Foucquet' s brother may have been a source for this influence. Fouc­ quet had sent his brother, the Abbe Louis Foucquet, to Rome in 1655. The latter had the double mission of spying on Lionne, Louis XN' s ambassador, and of purchasing orna­ ments and garden decorations for Foucquet's house at Saint-Mande and the proposed Vaux-le-Vicomte. Since the Abbe was not knowledgeable in artistic matters, he hired the painter Nicolas Poussin as consultant.26 Two important letters written by the Abbe to Nicolas Foucquet have survived; unfortunately, however, the Minister's response has not. The first is dated 2 August 1655: J'ay recherche soigneusement dans Rome toutes les estampes d'architec­ ture, fontaines et palais; je vous les ay envoies... n s'en trouvera encore quelques unes pour les ornements particuliers des maisons.27

In the second letter dated 16 August 1655, the Abbe mentions his lack of confidence in the architectural abilities of LeVau. This suggests, perhaps, that LeV au had presented his 41

proposed plan for the future palace of Vaux to the Minister a full year before the contract 0 was signed in August 1656. Consequently, there may have been enough time to make improvements. One can speculate that Foucquet had sent and received a corrected drawing in the Italianate manner. The Abbe writes: Si vous voulez envoyer les plans de vos maisons et de vos jardins, pour les faire controler ici par des habiles, peut-etre ne serait-ce pas inutile.28

In 1655, San Agnese was not finished due to problems on the construction site. Built for , San Agnese was bound to attract the attention of both the Abbe and the European community.29 The Rainaldis had begun the church, but were dismissed in August 1653. Borromini was appointed in their place, and under his guidance the

construction progressed rapidly between 1653 and 1655. By January 1655 the fa~ade was complete up to the cornice and the dome was finished except for the lantern. Thus,

enough of this highly "plastic" concave-convex fa~ade would have been built for the Abbe to see. Since it was in the latest High Roman fashion, it is reasonable to suppose that San Agnese exerted an influence on Vaux. The Abbe might also have sent Bonacina's engraving of the completed San Agnese, dated to 1654, to Foucquet.30 c A third source for the Salon Oval may have come from an earlier project by Le Vau. In 1645, Le Raincy was designed for Jacques Bordier, the Intendants des Finances (fig.12). Bordier was part of Foucquet's social milieu; therefore, when Foucquet commissioned LeVau to build Vaux, it is reasonable to assume that he designed a palace similar to Le Raincy but with larger, more imposing and more refined dimensions. Le Raincy could, then, be considered the rough draft or testing ground for Vaux. 31 At Le Raincy the plan followed the traditional French manner, which consisted of a main block

with slight projections in the middle of both garden and court fa~ades with four corner pavilions.32 Le Raincy was unique at the time because its oval salon occupied the central area of the chateau. At Vaux, instead of a single oval vestibule, the middle block is occupied by a rectangular entrance way which leads to an oval salon lying across the main axis of the building. Vaux now has a tripartite opening providing transition from the front court to vestibule, from vestibule to salon, and from salon to garden. Though Vaux is not a direct imitation of Le Raincy, there are obvious similarities between both 0 buildings. 42

Following seventeenth-century maxims, the chateau of Vaux is the focus of the 0 entire project, a role emphasized partly by the presence of the moat but mostly by the large dome which is the very center of the composition (fig.13). The palace-island forms one large ressaut (large architectural projection) in the surrounding landscape. The harmo­ nious relationship between building and garden reflects the very close collaboration bet­ ween builder and landscape architect. LeNostre never lost sight of the fact that the building was to be "the chief actor on the stage," but one should not imagine the garden as mere backdrop. Indeed, its various sections provided a rhythmic succession of con­ venient stops and starts for the courtier' s parade. The layout was designed to receive the visitor in the cour d' honneur, lead him through the symbolic center (the Oval Salon) and, finally, to release him into infinite space (the garden). This grand concept was not a new invention, but rather a synthesis of the basic intent of seventeenth-century French secular architecture: the palace is conceived as an organism simultaneously linked to and distin­ guished from the surrounding garden. When one emerges from the Salon Oval and steps onto the garden terrace, the landscape is revealed in all its monumental and unified splendour (fig.15 & 13). Every c aspect was permeated with an artificiality and rigidity which, for some observers, was almost repulsive. The Due de Saint-Simon wrote the following critique of Versailles: Truly, the magnificence of the gardens is amazing, but to make the smallest use of them is disagreeable, and they are in equally bad taste. To reach any shade one is forced to cross a vast, scorching expanse and after all, there is nothing to do in any direction but go up and down a little hill, after which the gardens end. The broken stones on the paths burn one's feet, yet without them one would sink into sand or the blackest mud ... Who could help being repelled and disgusted at the violences done to Nature? Numberless springs have been forced to grow in the gardens from every side making them lush, overgrown and boggy; they are perceptibly damp and unhealthy and their smell is even more so. The net result is that one admires and flies. 33

These comments could apply equally to Vaux. It is interesting to note the contrasting opinions about these formal gardens when comparing Saint-Simon's condemnation to Mile. de Scudery's eulogies! From the steps in front of the chateau the garden spreads eight hundred metres to 0 the gilt Hercules in the distance (fig.16). To animate the views at Vaux, one has to 43

imagine the chemistry of water and light playing over an enormous "outdoor stage set" 0 arranged for entertainment on a pagan theme. According to Adams, one can lose sight of reality standing on the terrace.34 The first impression is that all has been revealed in one glance and that the element of distance has been reduced to a comprehensible unit. Her­ cules, resting on the distant hill above the grotto, could be ten inches high or a hundred feet tall; it is impossible to estimate. The heavy foliage flanking the sides of the open space keeps the outline solid and directs the eye precisely toward its limits on the horizon. The park at Vaux, then, appears much smaller than it is in reality. In the tradition of Boyceau's Luxembourg, the effect is not one of vastness but of monumentality and gran­ deur. It is difficult for the viewer to establish measurements. Le Nostre designed the major elements of the garden-- the walks, the pools, the beds-- to relate to one another and not to the human scale. Even the Hercules, eighteen feet in height, conforms to the grand proportions of the whole. Once in the landscape, however, both people and lifesize sculptures provide points of reference. This contrast in size between the individual units and the larger elements of the garden increases the impression of colossal dimensions. In the great formal gardens of France such as Vaux, the sites, often enormous in extent, were considered "architecture on the flat "35 The composition would spread-out or appear to develop as far as the eye could see, thus giving the impression that nature had been subdued and brought under the owner's aesthetic control. In essence, LeNostre united the finite with the infinite. To achieve this effect, "steps" in the form of staircases, terraces or sloping ramps were indispensable to relieving the monotony inherent in any site.36 At first glance the vista may appear a level plane, but upon closer observation the differences in height are small and the transitions between the various areas so skilfully managed that the boundaries between them seem to disappear. Vaux-le-Vicomte, to my mind, is the supreme achievement in this genre. When looking across the gardens from the piano nobile, the vista seems to be one of embracing control, a vast prospect of garden geometry extending beyond tall, clipped banks of trees to the far horizon. Though we are able to see to this great distance, the main axis is far from level. The allee centrale slopes slightly downward through the main parterres, drops two levels en route down to the transverse canal, then rises up again to the commanding 0 statue of Hercules. With the help of the principles of linear perspective, the sense of great 44

remoteness is artificially contrived. Furthermore, through the optical distortions effected, 0 LeNostre has produced the illusion of an artificial horizon occurring at the very end of V aux' s garden. As discussed in chapter two, the principles of linear perspective hitherto peculiar to theatrical pageants were now being employed in garden settings. By slightly adapting the same rules, landscape gardeners were now able to organize and rationalize the layout of their sites. The science of optics was effectively employed to lengthen or shorten apparent distances in the garden. Terracing was utilized to create the illusion of space on a single plane. Thus, the result was to transform the real world into something "magical". Terracing had several purposes at Vaux. Foremost, it was practical. The different levels and inclines of the garden and its accompanying paths were carefully designed to drain properly towards the canal by following the natural incline of the valley. In this manner, LeNostre used the water economically by re-routing it through each and every fountain located between the palace and the canal. Secondly, terracing was a means to create the "illusions" and surprise elements so important in LeNostre's garden. This he accomplished through a combination of optical c tricks, by applying the principles of linear perspective and terracing. In a garden, as in a play or a symphony, the artist builds to the ultimate climax through lesser ones. At Vaux, le Petit Canal produced an effect which culminated in les Grandes Cascades. The latter supports the last terrace facing the canal. Since this bank was not visible from the house, the cascades could not be seen. Yet, their tumbling and splashing waters resound throughout the gardens coming to a gradual crescendo as one approached. The third, minor climax, also invisible until the visitor drew near, was the Canal which ended in the circular basin called La Poele.37 The Canal was so well hidden that the grotto looked as if it rested on, and supplied water to, le Miroir d 'eau. These were optical illusions created for their surprise effects. Following Boyceau's precepts, these "" were avidly sought after because they "teased" both the eye and the mind while adding diversity. Thus, at Vaux, the garden's most exciting features are in fact hidden from immediate view and only revealed as one progresses slowly through the garden. For this reason, Vaux is said to be the supreme example of le jardin de l'intelligence.38 c In accordance with Boyceau's theories, Vaux is an enclosed garden: the sides are 45

"walls" of clipped and the "ceiling" is formed by tree-tops allowed to grow 0 freely above the line of formal cutting. In this manner, the exact dimensions of the space are delineated and the other units of the garden (parterres, fountains, statues, etc ... ) relate to it as do furnishings to a room (figs.l6 & 17). The question of correct proportions for the allees was significant in the develop­ ment of the seventeenth-century formal garden. It involved an awareness of the possibi­ lity of distortion, and admitted to the importance of perspective and optics as a means of correction in landscape design. Prior to Boyceau, there was undoubtedly some feeling for the harmonious relationship of length to breadth in the construction of avenues, but never before had there been a set of rules which reflected a scientific approach to the problem. To Boyceau, it was necessary not only to proportion the width to the desired length, but to consider height as an important component as well. Following the precepts advocated by Boyceau prior to 1638 and practiced at the Luxembourg, LeNostre made adjustments not only to the width of the altees but also to the breadth of the garden.39 By imitating theatre sets, the vanishing point at Vaux was established by setting the Hercules at the apex of the composition. Reciprocally, when one c stood at the foot of this statue, the chateau became the vanishing point. This type of comprehensive view of the garden layout is known as a Kavalierperspektive.40 At Vaux, LeNostre followed several ofBoyceau's recommendations. In order to create a controlled focus without a claustrophobic effect, LeNostre made the uncovered area of the garden greater in width to offset the closed-in effect produced by the tall palissade of the flanking "walls." Consequently, in the area rising toward the Hercules, LeNostre utilized the following rule: as the distance increased, the width between the tree-covered portion (i.e. between the flanking, clipped hornbeam) was slightly diminished to create a funnel­ like space. The resulting shade served to heighten the effect of grandeur. Furthermore, the set-back "walls" and upward slope, reminiscent of the wings of a stage set, encouraged and forced the eye to linger slowly over the terrain. LeNostre's creation of false pers­ pective at Vaux is not unlike the optical illusions produced by both Borromini at the Palazzo Spada in Rome (1652-53) and, later, by Bernini at the Scala Regia in the Vatican (1663-66). The chief purpose, then, of the palissades is to shape the space, frame the 0 vista, and carry the eye forward on a focussed path. The trees at the edge prevent the eye 46 from roaming and provide the transition between the formal, rational section of the garden 0 and the surrounding "wild" countryside. Throughout the seventeenth century, landscape theorists kept extending the edges of the gardens, thus incorporating more and more of nature into the stage setting. Under LeNostre's stagecraft, the garden included the sky itself as part of its theatrical composi­ tion.41 The relationship between viewer and garden began as one stood looking from the terrace. As espoused by Boyceau, this was a viewing stand from which to admire the beauty spread out before one's eyes. At Vaux, the garden space was treated in the same manner as a two-dimensional painting. The orthogonals or lines of convergence always led the eye toward one specific element. This also helped visually to measure the space and to set distances within the garden. Therefore, the geometrically trimmed shrubs, parterres, flowers, grotto and statues were constructed for at least two specific reasons: to create variety and diversity of decoration, and to set distances. Their main purpose was to help the viewer's eye move rhythmically from one object to the next in a cadenced progression, as opposed to wandering freely or "helter-skelter" through the landscape.42 What appears at first to be a simple and self-evident composition is actually quite 0 complex. Using the optical tricks described by Descartes, Mersenne and Niceron, LeNos­ tre was able to achieve several more surprises. The pools, known as les Bassins des Tritons, are in reality two, four-lobed, elongated basins. Thus, to compensate for the dis­ torting effects of distance upon objects, LeNostre opted to use the present imperfect shape (fig.17, #13 on diagram) to make them appear, from the terrace, as perfect quatrefoil pools. Other water elements, such as le Rond d'Eau and le Miroir d'Eau, received similar treatment. The terracing was also adjusted to allow the water surfaces to serve as re­ flecting areas. Thus, LeNostre fuses the finite with the infinite by incorporating the garden into the sky's vast expanse. Le Miroir d'eau was constructed according to Descartes's writings on dioptrics, where the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of refraction.43 When the viewer looks

into this pool he is surprised to see a reflection of the palace fa~ade as well as of Le Confessional and sky (figs.14 & 20). This water mirror, the geographical center of the garden, generates several illusions. These fascinating optical changes effectively contrast the solidity of the architecture and garden layout with the instability of the reflections. 47

Despite the strong and rigidly formal design of the landscape, there is scarcely a 0 static moment. LeNostre's optical "tricks," in reality highly refined deceptions, convey numerous false impressions. They appealed to the highly rational individuals of the seven­ teenth century who enjoyed having their reasoning powers played upon in subtle ways. Gone was the craving for vulgar water tricks and games, the highly grotesque, fancy arboreal statuary and other similar amusements "a la Colonna," which had been so promi­ nent in the early gardens of both France and Italy.

VAUX: AN OVERVIEW Having discussed the overall scheme of LeNostre's garden, the following overview elaborates some of the relief elements that give Vaux the title of French Formal Garden par excellence. The decorations which completed this ideal pleasure garden include fountains, canals, grottoes, , galleries decorated with painting and sculpture, an orangerie, covered and uncovered allees, , bosquets, and relief decoration. LeNostre's intent was to create variety in the design, but always in the interest of balance and harmony. While this was an important garden practice in Boyceau' s trea­ 0 tise, it is doubtful that it had ever been as subtle or as successful before Vaux. Looking at the garden, the viewer at once grasps a complete sense of the design. One experiences an overwhelming sense of order, of balance, of "apparent" symmetry. Upon closer inspec­ tion, one soon discovers that the parts on either side of the central axis are made to cor­ respond through the asymmetrical balance of many diverse features. Underneath the surface homogeneity, then, is a refreshing diversity. For LeNostre, symmetry did not so much imply the identical matching of twin components on either side of a central axis; rather, it was simply a balancing of "equivalents".44 Directly in front of the chateau, the eye encounters the elaborately ornamented parterres de broderie. These, with their intricate and delicate design, served as visual foils to the simple, heavy, architectural forms of the palace (fig.15). Following earlier French practice, the parterres were enclosed on three sides by a raised terrace, thus isolating them and making their patterns more distinct to the viewer.45 Following both Mollet the Elder's and Boyceau's recommendations, sturdy boxwood was used to create the parterre 0 "embroidery", while crushed stones and brick dust highlighted the "stitching". Also, the 48 vegetal component was strategically planted to rectify possible optical distortions and 0 maintain perspective. Lastly, the parterres were intended to represent the chateau's logical extension into the landscape. They simulated, in greenery and crushed brick, the richly colored rugs of the interiors and the decorative, geometrically patterned marble inlay of the walls and floors.46 On slightly elevated terraces, above the parterres, are Le Parterre des Fleurs and Le Parterre de la Couronne (figs. 21 & 22).47 Le Parterre des Fleurs, with its relatively tall plants, parallels the adjacent raised terrace and, in spite of its relatively long and narrow dimensions, balances neatly with the lower, but wider and more extensive, Parterre de la Couronne. LeNostre who was somewhat contemptuous of flowers, stated that they only pleased the nursemaids and wetnurses who could look upon them from the upper story of the palace.48 He found that their bright colors and uneven height disturbed the classical structure of the garden. Unfortunately for LeNostre, flowers were popular and were used extensively throughout the seventeenth century. Foucquet was also an avid collector of plants. Today, Le Parterre des Fleurs is one of the major missing elements at Vaux, left unrestored during the nineteenth century. c Walking down the central allee, one comes upon the first of the two important transaxial avenues. The first axis is found by following Le Rond d 'Eau at the foot of the parterres de broderie. This new plane is emphasized by two long pools of water known as Le Petit Canal, which extend transversely on either side of the longitudinal axis. These are water areas that, again, provide an agreeable surprise as they are invisible from the chateau. To the right, marking one end of the avenue, is a portal leading to Le Potager, Vaux's vegetable garden (fig.23). Though less monumental, it is similar to the entrance to the palace, La Grille d'Honneur. Beyond Le Potager, the vista stretches out into the countryside through a broad, tree-lined avenue. By using the same principles of linear perspective applied earlier in the central allee, Le Nostre again extends the view to in­ finity. In the opposite direction one sees La Grille d'Eau (fig.24). Laid out on a gentle rise, this is a wide staircase of three flights on either side of which are three levels of c fountains. Water from regularly spaced jets splashes through masks and into large shells 49

before emptying into pools at the bottom of the composition. At the top of the stairs is 0 a row of jets with a berm at both ends.49 These features form a water grille that complements the iron and stone structure of La Grille du Potager at the opposing end of this axis. In 1661, La Grille d'Eau became an open air theatre for the presentation of Moliere's Les Hlcheux. As the garden landscape provided the necessary backdrop, it was not necessary to install a painted screen, as was suggested by Andre Mollet. From the intersection between Le Petit Canal and the main allee one moves to 1' Allee d'Eau, yet another unrestored section of Vaux (fig.25). This was the precursor of 1' Allee des Marmousets at Versailles. Mile. de Scudery described this area in the following manner: ... c'est que l'allee qui continue en allant en bas a deux agreables ruisseaux gazonnez, avec des jets d'eau de distance en distance, qui sont si proches les uns des autres, que sela semble une balustrade de crista!, qui regne des deux costez de cette allee, car ces jets d'eau n'ont pas une grande elevation ... 50

Designed as a visual balustrade, these water jets were kept low and at exactly the same c height. The water fell back into a small, square basin from which it flowed in a narrow stream to the next pool. Today, one fmds only a row of flower-filled pots (on either side of the a/tee) and the effect, needless to say, is far less dramatic than the original intent (figs. 14 & 25). This profusion of water, the only element that brought life and movement to the setting, was responsible for Vaux-le-Vicomte's renown. In the seventeenth century, garden theorists considered water a delicious stimulus to both eye and ear. Water displays had existed in France prior to Vaux, the most significant of which were at Liancourt and Rueil, but neither were comparable to Vaux in terms of diversity and grandeur. Amazed by the quantity of water at Vaux, and deeply impressed by the gardens, Louis XIV toured the estate asking the names of those responsible for the beautiful decorations.51 Today, the sounds of Vaux's waterworks are rarely heard, but it is not difficult to imagine the fascination these water "extravaganzas" must have exerted. Under Le Nostre, the fontainier en chef Claude Robillard used water not only as an ornament, but also to 0 emphasize the differences between levels, to punctuate the intersection of paths and to 50

create a natural flow over the landscape as it followed the curve of the valley. Water at Vaux took the form of cascades, jets, fountains, pools, mirrors, and rivulets. It also produced a continuous sound of flowing, falling, and gurgling. Finally, these sounds, though barely audible from the chateau terrace, grew in intensity to the thunderous roar of Les Grandes Cascades (figs. 18 & 19). 52 Mile. de Scudery had the following comment about the variety of water display at Vaux: Si bien qu'en un tres petit espace, elle (l'eau a Vaux) est riviere, torrent, canal, cascade et ruisseau.53

Le Miroir d'Eau, beyond 1' Allee d'Eau, appeared rectangular when viewed from the chateau. From nearby, however, it assumes a perfectly square shape because of the effects of foreshortening (figs.14 & 19). This water-mirror allowed LeNostre to assert his mastery over nature by providing clear reflections of both palace and Le Confessionnal. Yet, because this shimmering surface caught the reflection of light playing across the sky and , it distorted the perspective and heightened the dream-like quality of the landscape. Beyond Le Miroir d'Eau were a regular series of water jets resembling those c bordering 1' Allee d'Eau (fig.26). To the left is Le Confessionnal (figs. 20 & 26), a man­ made grotto or . Because the space within is so shallow, and since it held neither fountain nor statue, it seems to have had little purpose. Perhaps it was simply a decorative element supporting the terrace above. The old grotto at Meudon (1552-60) may have served as its prototype (fig.27). Standing in front of Le Confessionnal, one suddenly realizes that the relationships are not as one had imagined them when standing on the garden terrace. As one advances, the correlation of the parts changes with dramatic rapidity. The grotto, which had seemed to rise from Le Miroir d'Eau, quickly recedes, and a kilometre long canal opens up at one's feet (fig.26). Le Grand Canal constitutes the second major transverse axis in the landscape. It stretches out in a straight line only to become lost in the dark shadows of the forest. At one end, Le Grand Canal broadens into a large circular basin, La Poele, which is said to have been designed to facilitate the turning of pleasure boats. This is confirmed by two sources: Silvestre's engraving (fig.19), and Mile. de Scudery's comments: 51

Mais ce qu'il ya de tres agreable, c'est que toute cette grande estendue d'eau est couverte de petites barques peintes et dorees, et que de la on 0 entre dans le canal.54

Standing by the sunken Grand Canal (the channelled Anqueuil River), one suddenly realizes that while it separates the grotto from the rest of the garden, it also divides the landscape into two distinct sections. Another surprise element are les Grandes Cascades, which are hidden against the supporting wall of the terrace (figs. 19 & 26). The cascade, contrived to move water verti­ cally down an incline, is distinguished from a fountain by the greater amount of water 5 conveyed and by the size of the construction itself. 5 The progeny or descendant of the classic Italian architectural cascade appeared in seventeenth-century France at Rueil, Saint-Cloud, Fontainebleau, Liancourt and finally, at Vaux. The Italian architectonic model was adapted early on to meet the refinements and requirements of French clas­ sicism. Lemercier' s cascade at Liancourt, built from circa 1620's to 1637, had tremendous influence upon Les Grandes Cascades at Vaux (fig. 28). Unlike Italian models, which were composed on a vertical axis, the Liancourt cascade was developed horizontally. It 0 was formed by a sequence of twenty-two cascades, each composed of three-tiered basins. This architectural motif was probably an elaboration on the Alley of the Hundred Foun­ tains at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli. At the Villa, however, thin streams in two rows pour into separate troughs without any cascading effect. At Liancourt, Lemercier created a true cascade with continuous sheets of water flowing from one level to the next. The work artfully fitted the topography of Liancourt with its large flat parterres disposed at varying levels. This stress on the horizontal axis, never found in Italian gardens, was a new French concept which, consequently, created an impressive regularity and order in keeping with the rest of the monumental landscape. It is evident that the horizontal type, "a la Liancourt," exerted a strong influence on French designers. Examples are provided by the modest cascade at Saint-Cloud (c.1625 to 1644), and the water theatre at Tanlay (1643-1649). Although Les Grandes Cascades at Vaux imitated Liancourt, they were more spectacular. They echoed the flat parterres

and served as a link between two levels (figs.13 & 19). Set parallel to the garden fa~ade of the chateau (as at Liancourt), and viewed from the far side of the canal, Les Grandes Cascades form a podium for the garden with the palace as a back-drop. The water spouts 52

from grotesque masks and flows down from tiered basins, again on the pattern of Liancourt. But the basins alternate with massive, pedestallike projections of masonry which give the architectural element a much more monumental appearance (fig.29). The cascades received extravagant praise from Mile. de Scudery: .. .!'imagination ne peut rien concevoir de si grand, de si agreable, et de si magnifique; la nature toute puissante qu'elle est, ne peut produire rien de si beau, et 1' Art qui se vante de l'imiter souvent, de la surpasser quelquefois, et de 1' embellir toujours ne s~auroit rien faire de si merveilleux. 56

In the square basin at the center of Le Grand Canal, at the height of both the cascades and grotto, Silvestre indicates a sculptural group comprised of a Neptune, tritons and sea horses (fig.30). Bernini's Neptune and Triton (1619-20), made for Cardinal Montalto's villa on the Esquiline Hill in Rome, is the likely prototype (fig.31). Bernini's and Vaux's sculptural groups were scenographically related to the water below, a concept difficult to understand without the aid of contemporary prints and some imagination, as these decorative elements are no longer in-sitU. Depending on the interpretation, Bernini' s Neptune illustrates a passage from either 's or Virgil's Aeneid.57 c Neither version seems appropriate for Vaux. Perhaps its purpose was to serve as a transitional element between the two sides of the canal, though it may illustrate the Neptune referred to in the "Aventure d'un saumon et d'un esturgeon" in Le Songe de Vaux. The salmon and sturgeon were sent as emissaries to bestow gifts to Oronte (Fouc­ quet). On the other hand, the intent may have been to decorate the grotto with marine elements worthy of the most beautiful French garden of the time. 58 Several illustrations of the site made by different artists--- Perelle, Silvestre, and the oil by J.B. Martin-- as well as the following passage by Dezallier d' Argenville, attest to the existence of this monument: Une piece carre, du milieu de laquelle s'eleve un rocher, ou est placee une figure en plomb de Neptune arme de son trident.59

Mile. de Scudery also describes an elaborate sculptural group in the middle of the canal. Unfortunately, she completely misinterprets its subject matter: ... une figure de Galatee, avec un Ciclope qui joiie de la cornemuse, et divers Tritons tout a 1' entour. 60 53

According to some scholars, most notably Bonnaffe and Hazlehurst, it is possible that the Neptune sculptural group as displayed in the prints was never put into place. Their argument is based upon a document, dated 1665, which proposes that this ensemble was found lying in a small garden behind the barn at Vaux.61 After researching the contemporary visual and written documentation, I find it very difficult to accept such notions. Instead, I believe that the Neptune was intact in the canal until at least 1661 when, on Mme. Foucquet's request, it was removed and sold in order to repay her hus­ band's debts. This is a likely explanation since many of the sculptures, plants and objects were sold by the family in order to survive and keep up the seigneurie. Proof lies in the fact that the Neptune was part of the lot appraised in Paris on 11 May 1666 by Jacques Le Cornier, who was in charge of liquidating Foucquet's extravagances.62 The Neptune sculptural group was presumably sold, but it has not appeared since that time. As a decorative element, the grotto became a standard topos in the garden of the seventeenth century.63 Immediately behind the Neptune was Vaux's renowned grotto (figs. 30 & 32). Clearly, this was LeNostre's most ambitious architectural project. The grotto was a place for delight and meditation, for rest and recreation, for the restoration and renewal of the senses, for private and public pleasures. Like the surrounding landscape, the grotto was an escape from the world of reality, especially from the rules, artifices and constrictions of society.64 Because LeNostre made it the focal point of a long perspective, the grotto forms a veritable climax to the garden. Here, the landscape architect makes nostalgic use of river gods from antiquity to celebrate water's life-giving power, a concept also used at the Villa Adriana at Tivoli, the Villa Famese at Caprarola, and the at Bagnaia. 65 The sides of Vaux' s grotto are flanked by rough sand-stone staircases leading to a terrace. From here, the land slopes gently up to the Hercules. In the center of the grotto, water spills from seven deeply recessed and vaulted shell-shaped niches which, in turn, are separated by eight embossed berms. Both niches are bedecked with artificial rock from which water flows, thus imitating a natural spring. At either end are sculptured river gods set in alcoves decorated with stalactites: the Tiber River lies to the right, and the native Anqueuil to the left. Since antiquity, Tiber and Neptune often presi­ ded over the garden; both deities are imaged as unfailing springs upon which life itself depends.66 Foucquet and his friends celebrated the Anqueuil River, a very minor tributary 54

of the , in this prestigious manner.67 Mile. de Scudery whimsically describes these 0 river gods: .. .le Tibre est represente comme on peint les Fleuves, c'est a dire a demy couche, et appuye sur son Ume; mais il paroist melancholique, comme estant fasche d'estre surpasse par le Fleuve du lieu qu'on voit represente de l'austre caste avec un air gay et enjoue.68 The grotto itself is surmounted by a heavy horizontal balustrade formerly decorated with sculptures which may have been the berms that Abbe Foucquet commissionned from Nicolas Poussin in 1655. They are now in the Quinconce du Midi and the Quinconce du Nord at Versailles.69 Above this balustrade could be seen the soaring Gerbe, the largest and most impressive "jet d'eau" in the garden (figs. 30 & 33). According to contemporary accounts, this column of water was as thick as a man's body and rose to a height of almost five meters; it was indeed the water wonder of Vaux's garden.70 When viewed from in front of the cascades, La Gerbe would have made a magnificent glittering pedestal for the gilt figure of Hercules. Today, the effect is far from impressive. Instead of one powerful stream, the "jets" are distributed over the surface of the reconstructed Gerbe. The ground rising behind the Gerbe was shaped into an amphitheater, and around this were paths giving a variety of vantage points from which to view the gardens and distant chateau. From here, tree-lined paths on either side of the tapis-vert led to the Hercules. Upon reaching the summit, not least of the surprises is the imposing Hercules (fig.34). From the chateau terrace the statue appeared lifesized, but standing directly below it, the Hercules towers six meters. The Hercules is in proportion, then, with the overall immensity or monumentality of the garden. The Vaux Hercules is actually a copy of the acclaimed Famese Hercules by Glycan (3rd century A.D.).71 The Famese Hercules, copied in virtually every medium, was set in numerous gardens, and , especially in Italy and France. Because Hercules was acknowledged as possessing special excellence and significance, these sites were lavishly decorated with such replicas. The French classi­ cal tradition of the seventeenth century gave an even more complex interpretation to the Hercules motif. Court poets and propagandists presented him not only as a strong and generous man, but also as possessing exceptional mental and spiritual gifts.72 Thus, it 0 should come as no surprise that Foucquet was celebrated as Hercules both inside the 55 chateau and in the gardens.73 At Vaux, Hercules is presented as resting and contemplating the result of his efforts-- the garden of Vaux-- thus providing the ideal allegory for Fouc­ quet. In 1659, Foucquet commissionned a new version of the Hercules: Pierre Puget was asked to sculpt a Seated Resting Hercules (fig.35). Puget himself went to the Carrara mountains to choose the marble for this statue and settled himself in to execute the work. With the news of Foucquet' s fall from grace, he abandoned the project and sought another patron.74 The most dramatic element in the garden is the vista towards the chateau as viewed from the base of the Hercules (fig.18). From here, the gardens raison d' etre becomes absolutly clear: the diverse parts of the site fall perfectly into a unified whole. Based upon the laws of geometry and the science of perspective, all of the orthogonals (formed by trees, shrubs, paths, parterres, pools, sculptures, and fountains) lead purposefully to the center of the chateau's prominent dome. Mile. de Scudery seems to have been aware that it was from this area that the gardens and buildings could be seen in all their magnificence:

... devant soy on voit la face du bastiment beaucoup plus belle que de nul autre endroit, avec ces deux costez, la vaste estendue du grand Jardin entre ces deux bois, toutes ces diverses fontaines jalissantes, ces canaux, ces quarrez d 'eau, ces cascades, et mesmes celles qui sont a coste du jardin a fleurs. 75 Moreover, the buildings act as a backdrop to a new kind of stage: the garden. As well, the shape of the dome is echoed by the amphitheatre (Vertugadin) above the grotto which, in turn, emphasizes the unity of the design. As indicated, the gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte served primarily to embellish the chateau as its logical extension. Yet, neither would be com-plete without the other in this monumental ensemble. Though the buildings and gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte were never fully completed, they anticipated the monumental scale that was to epitomize later seventeenth-century architectural and garden practice. Vaux, however, is not the first example of the monumental in landscape design, for true grandeur of scale occurs earlier in Marie de'Medici's Luxembourg. Nevertheless, Foucquet's Seigneurie de Vaux-le-Vicomte is the purest expression of the monumental to be seen in France. CONCLUSION

We have traced how Andre LeNostre came to work at Vaux-le-Vicomte when he was forty-three, and on the threshold of a great career. Here he worked with old friends, such as Le Vau and LeBrun, while collaborating with numerous, outstanding craftsmen. His employer was the brilliant minister and parliamentarian Foucquet, who had excellent taste and above all, was a lavish spender. In such circumstances, Le Nostre created his great masterpiece. Vaux-le-Vicomte was LeNostre's ftrst garden to illustrate that his landscaping concept had reached maturity; one which he was to maintain to the end of his artistic career. At Vaux, LeNostre consummated the development of landscape architecture into

~grand or monumental spatial form. Now that gardens were being designed on a grand scale, LeNostre's talent was to coordinate these vast compositions in a variety of situations, so that the parts were related within a rational plan, without being monotonous. What Corpechot would later call les jardins de I' intelligence. During his long career as c a landscape architect, LeNostre consolidated the seventeenth-century French garden theories, and perfected many of the ideas born of his own fertile imagination. This was only possible after gardening theories by Claude Mallet the Elder, Sieur Jacques Boyceau de la Barauderie and Andre Mallet were formulated and understood. But surely, the most eloquent testimony to Le Nostre's keen mind and subtle perceptive eyes, is the use of both optical illusions and linear perspective as enlivening forces in his garden schemes. In short, at Vaux-le-Vicomte Andre LeNostre brought the pure and fmal form of the French formal jardin de plaisir into existence. His great gardens were the ftrst so­ called "landscape gardens"; they were a product of the prevailing social conditions. Furthermore, Vaux illustrates the evolution that took place from the pure and simple utilitarian garden, to the grandiose and monumental pleasure garden. Though one is compelled to admire the workmanship effected at Vaux, one has to recognize that a disproportionate amount of talent and resources were required to achieve it The well­ known events which followed Louis's visit to Vaux show that there was a limit to which the king would tolerate his subject's demonstration of wealth and power. All this, 57

Foucquet understood too late. In his misfortune, he was not to know that Vaux-le-Vicomte established a new way of life in France and around Europe. LeNostre, its inventor, was ready to provide the necessary stage, the seventeenth-century "gardens of illusion". Following the August 1661 fete, when LeNostre displayed to an enthusiastic audience the final version of the French formal jardin de plaisance; variations of this classical theme were echoed all over the continent! During the eighteenth century the French zeal for building spread throughout Europe. The following are only a few examples whose palace gardens were designed according to LeNostre's theories: Herrenhausen and Nymphenburg in ; Caserta in Spain; Heemstede and Zeist in Holland; Hampton Court in ; Peterhof in U.S.S.R.; and, Schoenbrunn and the in Austria. The French manner was not then what later critics have charged it to be: a cold, geometric and intellectual symmetry, all form and no life; it was a place of life, sound, motion, plays and music. Following LeNostre's influences upon the theories formulated during the first half of the seventeenth century, French landscape gardening emerges as an art form vital to the life of ceremony and display that marked this period of absolutism. The monumental scale of the overall scheme was matched by that of its c components, while the formality of the garden's layout and the balance and harmony of its proportions were in keeping with the stately cadence of the age. 58

APPENDIX 1

Craftsmen working at Vaux:

Carpenter: Jacques Prou: chief carpenter

Engraver (medallions): Bertinetti

Fontaineer: Claude Robillard: the fontaineer who made water as important a feature of garden art as the trees and the marble

Gardeners: Antoine trumel: the chief gardener who supervised the actual labour of selecting, c moving, and setting the plant material

Maincy Tapestry Workshop: workers: Louis Blamard, Antoine Colpert, Jean Bomtemps,Nicolas Beaufaict, Jacques Coridier, Gille Boutredol, Pierre Bresnu, Jean zegre, Josse Boullanger, Nicolas Rambault, Fran~ois de Bussy, Jean Vieville, Guillaume Lenfant, Claude Lefebvre, Maitre Lourdet, Matthieu Bouche, Jean Perclas, Jacob Troet, Jean Perart

Sculptors: Michel Anguier Gardet Keller Lespagnandel Thilbaut Poissant Nicolas Poussin Pierre Puget

Stonemason: Villedo: the stonemason who built the palace, grotto and canal 59 c APPENDIX 2

Silvestre's Engravings of Vaux:

Israel Silvestre was born in Nancy in 1621 and died in Paris in 1691. From 1640 until 1655, he worked and traveled extensively in Italy where he earned a considerable reputation for his topographical views. Later, in 1661, when his uncle, the publisher and engraver Israel Henriet died, Silvestre inherited both his business and his collection of prints and plates; the works by Stefano della Bella and Jacques Callot were part of the lot. Because Silvestre's work was in such high demand, he employed other artists to help him. The engravings of Vaux-le-Vicomte are the products of such collaboration.

Taken from: Faucheux, L.E. Catalogue raisonne de toutes les estampes qui forment l' oeuvre d' Israel Silvestre. Paris: 1857. pages 293-294.

VAUX-LE-VICOMTE c 1. Plan de Vaux le Vicomte scale of 400 toises I. Siluestre del. cum. priuil. Regis 507 x 382 cm 2 states exist

2. Veae de Vavx le Vicomte dv caste de l' entree Israel Siluestre, delineauit, et excud Parisijs. priuilegio Regis 733 x 469 cm

3. Veve et perspective de Vavx le Vicomte dv caste dv Iardin Israel Siluestre Delineauit et sculpsit Cum Priuilegio Regis 727 x 471 cm

4. Veve et perspective dv Iardin de Vaux le Vicomte Israel Siluestre delineauit et sculpsit Cum Priuilegio Regis 774 x 510 cm

5. Veve et perspective dv chasteav de Vavx, par le caste Israel Siluestre, del, et sculp. Cum priuilegio Regis 0 513 x 369 cm 60

6. Veve dv chateau de Vavx par le coste Israel Siluestre delineauit et sculpsit Cum Priuil. Regis 0 516 x 571 cm

7. Avtre Veve du Iardin de Vavx Israel Siluestre delineauit Cum Priuilegio Regis 516 x 374 cm engraved by LePautre according to a Silvestre drawing

8. Veve et perspective dv parterre des flevrs Israel Siluestre delineauit et sculpsit Cum Priuilegio Regis 504 x 570 cm engraved by N.Perelle after Silvestre

9. Veve et perspective de la fontaine de la couronne et dv parterre de Vavx Israel Siluestre delineauit et sculpsit Cum Priuil.Regis 510 x 368 cm

10. Veve de la fontaine de la covronne de Vavx auec priulege du Roy 508 x 368 cm

11. Veve en perspective des cascades de Vavx Israel Siluestre delineauit et sculpsit Cum Priuilegio Regis c 516 x 374 cm

12. Veve et perspective des petites cascades de Vavx Israel Siluestre, del. et scul. Cum priuil. Regis. 508 x 365 cm

13. Veve et perspective de la grotte et d'vne partie dv canal Israel Siluestre delineauit et sculpsit Cum Priuil.Regis 510 x 380 cm

14. Veue des petites Cascades de Vaux Israel Siluestre delin. et ex. Perelle (Adam) sculp. 207 x 120 cm

0 NOTES

0 Introduction: pages 1-3.

1. P. de Vogiie, Vaux-le-Vicomte (Bar-sur-Aube: n.d.), 53

2. The readers of this study may be puzzled by the use of the spelling LeNostre instead of the more familiar LeNotre. The latter is the eighteenth-century spelling. The same applies for Louis XIVs Minister of Finance. In this study his name is spelled Foucquet, rather than the common Fouquet. See F.H. Hazlehurst, Gardens of Illusion: The Genius of Andre LeNostre (Nashville: 1980), viii.

3. F.H Hazlehurst, Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (: 1966), 1.

4. Garden images are particularly prevalent in the graphic arts, and they were a major vehicle in widely disseminating information about gardens, both to record and to form taste in garden design. Produced in multiple impressions, prints generally had a more popular and greater audience than other art forms. The various depictions as well as providing insight into how gardens were used, document the appearance of gardens, and demonstrate, for example at Vaux-le­ Vicomte, how the fascination with classical forms and mythology extended into c the domain of landscape design. During the seventeenth century, the printed images, such as those by Silvestre, frequently have an increased scale and depict vast stretches of space far beyond the scope of Renaissance perspective rendering. Renaissance artists used the principles of perspective to imitate the appearance of the three-dimensional, natural world; Baroque artists employed it to give the illusion of a view that extended into infinity. This grandeur of scale reflects the new mastery that man exerted over his environment. This monumentality was possible due to the advances made in the exact sciences and by the tenets of contemporary philosophy. See National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gardens on Paper: Prints and Drawings, 1200-1900 (: 1990). 11, 43, 77. * * * Chapter 1: Foucguet and his Age, pages 4-10.

1. David Maland, Culture and Society in Seventeenth Century France (New York: 1970), 203.

2. Marie Luise Gothein, A History of Garden Art. Vo/.2 (London: 1928), 51.

3. Comte Patrice de Vogue, Vaux-le-Vicomte (Bar-sur-Aube: n.d.), 3. 62

4. In the Minister's native dialect of Angers, a squirrel is known as a "foucquet." See Claude Aragonnes, Madeleine de Scudby: Reine du tendre (Paris: 1934), 190.

5. To remind posterity about their noteworthy careers, Foucquet's predecessors usually made acquisitions of or constructed palaces worthy of kings. For example, Antoine Coiffier, unhappy with his Paris hotel, bought the chateau of Chilly and had it completely refurbished. had the chateau of Wideville built. Michel Particelli constructed one of the most luxurious hotels in Paris and remodelled his newly acquired chateau of Coligny. Abel Servien, co-superin­ tendant of Finance with Foucquet, had the chateau des Guises in Meudon completely redone. This complex was repaired between 1654 and 1659 and therefore can be considered contemporary with Vaux-le-Vicomte. Each aimed at being, for their respective owners, the most beautiful and greatest chateau in existence. Foucquet became the scapegoat for the group as Servien died in 1659. These men were but a few representatives of this new class, the bourgeoisie, which was building furiously during the 1630's and 1640's. See U.V. Chatelain, Le Surintendant Foucquet: Protecteur des lettres, des arts et des sciences (Paris: 1905), 349-353.

6. Ernile Magne, Les fetes en Europe au XVIle siecle (Paris: 1930), 107.

7. W.H. Lewis, The Splendid Century: Life in France of Louis XIV (New York: 1957), 4-5. c 8. Ibid., 5.

9. Sacheverell Sitwell, Great Houses of Europe (London: 1961), 135.

10. W.H. Lewis, The Splendid Century: Life in France of Louis XIV (New York: 1957), 7.

11. Foucquet' s library contained twenty-seven thousand books on such varied subjects as history, medecine, law, natural sciences, mathematics, oratory, theology, philosophy or the arts. SeeR. Pfnor, Le chdteau de Vaux-le-Vicomte, dessine et grave (Paris: 1888), 28.

12. F.H. Hazlehurst, Gardens of Illusion: The Genius of Andre LeNostre (Nashville: 1980), 17.

13. The literary circle at Vaux, known as Les Precieux, was created along the lines of a group in existence earlier in the seventeenth century in Paris. The fine flower of French life met at the Hotel Rambouillet, where literary reputations were made or lost. The Marquise de Rambouillet (1588-1665) organized the Hotel Rambouil­ let in 1618. One glance at the dirty, barrack-room court of Henri N was enough for this young bride, newly arrived in France. She determined to make her own circle of friends in cleaner surroundings. Not content with the houses offered on 63 the market, she designed the Hotel Rambouillet. This house departed from the accepted patterns of the day, as did her circle of friends. Unfortunately, the c outbreak of the Fronde in 1649, swept the Hotel Rambouillet out of existence. The stage was taken over by Foucquet and his friends at St. Mande and later at Vaux­ le-Vicomte. See W.H. Lewis, The Splendid Century: Life in France ofLouis XIV (New York: 1957), 267-268.

14. David Maland, Culture and Society in Seventeenth Century France (New York: 1970), 209.

15. Marie Luise Gothein, A History of Garden Art. Vol.2 (London: 1928), 32.

16. Helen Fox, Andre LeNotre: Garden Architect to Kings (London: 1962), 74.

17. Maurice Fleurent, Vaux-le-Vicomte: La clairiere enchantee (Paris: 1989), 94.

18. Jean Cordey, Vaux-le-Vicomte, notice historique et descriptive sue le chateau et le pare (Paris: 1923), 6; and Sacheverell Sitwell, Great Houses of Europe (London: 1961), 135.

19. Ralph Dutton, The Chliteau of France (London: 1957), 146.

20. Arthur Mangin, Histoire des jardins: anciens ·et modernes (Tours: 1887), 158. c 21. Claude Fregnac, Les chateaux de l' /le-de-Prance (Paris: 1965), 225.

22. Victor Tapie, The Age of Grandeur: Baroque Art and Architecture (New York: 1957), 104; and Marie Luise Gothein, A History of Garden Art. Vol.2 (London: 1928), 58.

23. Claude Fregnac, Les chliteaux de l' /le-de-Prance (Paris: 1965), 225.

24. Maurice Fleurent, Vaux-le-Vicomte: La clairiere enchantee (Paris: 1989), 93.

25. David Maland, Culture and Society in Seventeenth Century France (New York: 1970), 174.

26. Victor Tapie, The Age of Grandeur: Baroque Art and Architecture (New York: 1957), 105.

27. During Foucquet's trial, a chest was found at Vaux containing three hundred and twenty-one letters. These pertained to the construction and cost of the palace and gardens. Unfortunately, in order to be able to indict Foucquet, the king's agents destroyed all but nine of these documents. See Anatole de Montaiglon, Archives 0 de l' art franfais tome VI (Paris: 1966), 2. 64

28. Helen Fox, Andre LeNotre: Garden Architect to Kings (London: 1962), 69.

29. Kenneth Woodbridge, Princely Gardens: The Origins and Development of the French Formal Style (London: 1986), 194.

30. Marie Luise Gothein, A History of Garden Art. Vol.2 (London: 1928), 32.

31. Maurice Fleurent, Vaux-le-Vicomte: La clairiere enchantee (Paris: 1989), 11.

* * *

Chapter 2: Garden Theory in France, pages 11-27.

1. University Gallery (University of Minnesota), Inhabitants of the Enchanted Isle: French Pleasure Gardens in the Age of Grandeur (1975), 16.

2. Ibid., 15.

3. F.H. Hazlehurst, Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), 9. c 4. Kenneth Wood bridge, Princely Gardens: The Origins and Development of the French Formal Style (London: 1986), 33.

5. W. H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 10.

6. Ibid., 12.

7. W. H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 18.

8. , "The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili in Seventeenth Century France," Journal of the Warburg & Courtauld Institute (1937), 118.

9. The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili was translated into French by Jean Martin in Paris, with the new title of Le Songe de Poliphile. See Denise & Jean-Pierre LeDantec, the French Garden: Story and History (Cambridge: 1990), 56.

10. Anthony Blunt, "The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili in Seventeenth Century France," Journal of the Warburg & Courtauld Institute (1937), 119.

11. F.H. Hazlehurst,Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), 14.

Q 12. Verey, Classic Garden Design (New York: 1989), 46. 65

13. F.H. Hazlehurst, Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), c 98. 14. Anthony Blunt, "The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili in Seventeenth Century France," Journal of the Warburg & Courtauld Institute (1937), 117-118.

15. Ibid., 118-119.

16. David Maland, Culture and Society in Seventeenth Century France (New York: 1970), 207.

17. Louis Hautecoeur, Au temps de Louis XIV (Paris: 1967), 2.

18. W. H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 21.

19. The retention of the moat was no longer primarily for defense nor for use as a fish pond. Instead, it became a decorative feature. The importance of the terrace raised high above the moat was to provide an area from which one could view the gardens See F.H. Hazlehurst, Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), 18.

20 . Ibid., 17-18.

.~ 21. Susan & Geoffrey Jellicoe, Water: The Use of Water in Landscape Architecture ~ (London: 1971 ), 66.

22. W. H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 42.

23. F.R. Cowell, The Garden as a Fine Art (London: 1978), 158.

24. This treatise was translated into French in 1564 under the title L'Agriculture et maison rustique. As the name implies it is frrst and foremost an agricultural dis­ sertation; the first of its kind to appear in France. See F.H. Hazlehurst, Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), 100.

25. Kenneth Woodbridge, Princely Gardens: The Origins and Development of the French Formal Style (London: 1986), 98.

26. F.H. Hazlehurst, Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), 21.

27. W. H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 52.

28. It was originally published as A. Gallo, Le dieci giornate della vera agricoltura e piaceri della villa, (Venice: 1565). 66

29. F.H. Hazlehurst, Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), c 22. 30. Christopher Thacker, The History of Gardens (London: 1979), 139.

31. Ibid., 140ff.

32. Sten Karling, "The Importance of Andre Mollet and his Family for the Development of the French Formal Garden," The French Formal Garden (1974), 7.

33. W. H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 48.

34. Derek Clifford, A History of Garden Design (New York: 1966), 68.

35. The year of Mollet the Elder's treatise has been set at about 1613 by M.L. Gothein in her book Geschichte der Gartenkunst vol.II (Leipzig: 1914), and at 1614 by A. Grisebach in Der Garten (Leipzig: 1910), or at 1615 by L. Hautecoeur in Les jardins des dieux et des hommes (Paris: 1959). The preface to Claude Mallet's treatise informs us that Claude had fmished writing his around 1615 and that his four sons did some of the plate designs:

11 ...afin que je vous donne contentement, amy lecteur, j'ay fait fair par mes enfans quelques compartiments de nouvelle invention, lesquels n'ont point c encore este mis en lumiere."

See Sten Karling, "The Importance of Andre Mollet and his Family for the Development of the French Formal Garden," Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture, The French Formal Garden, (Washington, D.C.: 1974), 8 & 14.

36. W. H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 50.

37. Kenneth Woodbridge, Princely Gardens: The Origins and Development of the French Formal Style (London: 1986), 108.

38. F.R. Cowell, The Garden as a Fine Art (London: 1978), 158.

39. He1en Fox, Andre LeNotre: Garden Architect to Kings (London: 1962), 52.

40. F.H. Hazlehurst,Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), Xll.

41. Jacques de Menours, Boyceau's nephew, was to have published the treatise. He had been placed in charge of collating the manuscript, but died around 1637. Finally, it was left to his widow Marie LeCoq who had the dissertation published 67

in 1638. See J. Lortel, "Jacques Boyceau- Un precurseur de LeNotre," Revue de c Belgique (1913), 974. 42. Jacques Boyceau, Le traite du jardinage seton les raisons de la nature et de l' art (Paris: 1979 microfiche ), 82.

43. F.H. Hazlehurst, Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), 26 & 85.

44. Jacques Boyceau, Le traite du jardinage seton les raisons de la nature et de l' art (Paris: 1979 microfiche edition), 30.

45. Ibid., 31.

46. F.H. Hazlehurst, Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), 28.

47. Jacques Boyceau, Le traite du jardinage seton les raisons de la nature et de l' art (Paris: 1979 microfiche edition), 74.

48. W. H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 52.

,,-... 49. F.H. Hazlehurst, Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), '-" 48. 50. The treatise was published in 1651 in Stockholm, when Andre Mallet was in the service of Queen Christina. It was also his gift to her following her coronation in 1650. In his preface, Mallet excuses the briefness of the manuscript by stating that he had written the text and created the plates during the previous six months. See Andre Mallet, Le Jardin de plaisir (reprint edition, Paris: 1981), 10.

51. Ibid., 110.

52. Kenneth Woodbridge, Princely Gardens: The Origins and Development of the French Formal Style (London: 1986), 242.

* * *

Chapter 3: Andre LeNostre: Heir to a Tradition, pages 28-32.

1. W. H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 75.

2. Helen Fox, Andre LeNotre: Garden Architect to Kings (London: 1962), 38. 68

3. Andre LeN ostre' s baptismal certificate shows an impressive list of sponsors from the apparently close-knit coterie of contemporary landscape architects. Among the c participants at the ceremony were Andre Berard, ContrOleur general des jardins du Roi, who served as godfather and Claude Martigny, wife of Claude Mollet the Elder, Premier jardinier des Tuileries, who acted as godmother. See F.H. Hazlehurst, Gardens of Illusion: The Genius of Andre LeNostre (Nashville: 1980), 1.

4. The exact location of Andre's maison natale is not known, but scholars have concluded that it was near the Pavillion de Marsan, in the north end of the Tuileries gardens. See Bernard Jeannel, LeNotre (Paris: 1985),22.

5. F.H. Hazlehurst, Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), 86.

6. Sten Karling, "The Importance of Andre Mollet and his Family for the Development of the French Formal Garden," Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture, The French Formal Garden, (Washington, D.C.: 1974), 13.

7. Andre Mollet, Le Jardin de plaisir (reprint edition, Paris: 1981), 107.

8. W. H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 76. c 9. Kenneth Woodbridge, Princely Gardens: The Origins and Development of the French Formal Style (London: 1986), 185.

10. F.H. Hazlehurst, Gardens of Illusion: The Genius of Andre LeNostre (Nashville: 1980), 2.

11. Bernard Jeannel, LeNotre (Paris: 1985), 26.

12. W. H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 33.

13. Ibid., 64, 66 & 67.

14. Nan Fairbrother, Men and Gardens (London: 1956), 132.

15. Marina Schinz & Susan Littlefield, Visions of Paradise: Themes and Variations on the Garden (Toronto: 1985), 174.

16. The treatise was published nine years after LeNostre's death. Its popularity all over Europe is due to its lively presentation and to its value as a practical . While LeNostre's canon is preserved everywhere, it is always translated into a local idiom in the country of the people for whom the gardens were made. That it was published many times in France, and in other languages, attests to its 69

success and to the sensation it caused. The various French versions were published in 1709, 1713, 1722 and 1740. It was translated into English by John James of c London in 1712 as The Theory and Practice of Gardening. Lastly, in 1731, it was translated in German by the court gardener-in-chief Frantz Danreitter as Die Gartnerey sowohl in ihrer Theorie oder Betrachtung, als Praxi oder Ubung. See G. Gollwitzer, "The Influence of LeNostre on the European Garden of the Eighteenth Century," Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture (Washington: 1974), 74.

17. F.H. Hazlehurst, Gardens of Illusion: The Genius of Andre LeNostre (Nashville: 1980), 43.

18. Ibid., 2.

19. Sten Karling, "The Importance of Andre Mallet and his Family for the Develop­ ment of the French Formal Garden," Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History ofLandscape Architecture, The French Formal Garden, (Washington, D.C.: 1974), 13.

20. Kenneth Woodbridge, Princely Gardens: The Origins and Development of the French Formal Style (London: 1986), 185. c * * *

Chapter 4: Vaux-le-Vicomte: Garden of illusion, pages 33-55.

1. F.H. Hazlehurst, Gardens of Illusion: The Genius of Andre LeNostre (Nashville: 1980), 17.

2. Sten Karling, "The Importance of Andre Mallet and his Family for the Develop­ ment of the French Formal Garden," Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History ofLandscape Architecture, The French Formal Garden, (Washington, D.C.: 1974), 5.

3. Madeleine de Scudery, C/elie, Histoire Romaine Vol. 10 (Geneve: 1973 reprint), 1141.

4. Jacques Boyceau, Le traite du jardinage seton les raisons de la nature et de l' art (Paris: 1979 microfiche) and Andre Mallet, Le jardin de plaisir (Paris: 1981 reprint).

5. W.H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 57. 70

6. F.H. Hazlehurst, Jacques Boyceau and the French Formal Garden (Athens: 1966), c 55. 7. Maurice Fleurent, Vaux-le-Vicomte: la clairiere enchantee (Paris: 1989), 31.

8. Comte Patrice de Vogiie, Vaux-le-Vicomte (Bar-sur-Aune: n.d.), 7.

9. Christian Norberg-Schulz, Late Baroque and Rococo Architecture (New York: 1985), 167.

10. Ana to le de Montaiglon, Archives de I' Art Fran~ais Vol. VI (Paris: 1966), 7.

11. W.H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 93.

12. James Hall, Dictionnary of Subjects and Symbols in Art (London: 1989), 25.

13. Marc-Rent~ Jung, Hercule dans la litterature fran~aise du XV/e siecle (Geneve: 1966), 6.

14. Ibid., 8.

15. Corrado Vivanti, "Henry IV, The Gallic Hercules," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute (1967), 182-183. c 16. At Vaux, the decoration of this bedchamber is the first example in of the style which was to become the future model for Versailles and which was to flourish throughout Europe. See Comte Patrice de Vogiie, Vaux-le-Vicomte (Bar­ sur-Aune: n.d.), 47.

17. Jennifer Montagu, "The Early Ceiling Decorations of Charles LeBrun," The Burlington Magazine (1963), 405.

18. Ibid., 402.

19. Mile. de Scudery describes some of the colors of the composition, indicating that a modello once existed. This was confirmed by Claude Nive1on (c.1700), LeBrun' s biographer:

"ll fit un tableau camayeux en ovale long de 5 pieds pour servir de modele du plafond du grand dome de ce lieu qui est une representation de Palais du Soleil ou pour mieux l'expliquer une representation de tout ce qui se passe dans le cours de 1' annee."

Proof that this project, originally intended for Vaux, was deemed suitable for Louis XIV's royal architecture lies in the engraving The Assembly of the Gods, done iri 1681 by Gerard Audran. He made numerous changes to the original 71

modello, the most important of which was to refer allegorically to Louis rather than to Foucquet! See Robert Berger, "Charles LeBrun and the Louvre Colonna­ c de," The Art Bulletin (1970), 394 & 401.

20. Madeleine de Scudery, Clelie, Histoire Romaine Vol. 10 (Geneve: 1973 reprint), 1112.

21. Louis Hautecoeur, Mystique et architecture: symbolisme du cercle et de la coupole (Paris: 1954), 245.

22. Fran~ois Gebelin, The Chateau of France (London: 1964), 142.

23. Unpublished material found in Professor Thomas L. Glen's graduate seminar on Baroque art and architecture at McGill University, MontreaL (Winter semester 1989).

24. Kenneth Woodbridge, Princely Gardens: The Origins and Development of the French Formal Style (London: 1986), 188.

25. Albert Laprade, Fran,ois d'Orbay: Architecte de Louis XIV (Paris: 1960), 111.

26. Anatole de Montaiglon, Archives de /'Art Fran,ais Vol.II (Paris: 1966), 268. I"" '-' 27. Ibid., 290. 28. Albert Laprade, Fran,ois d'Orbay: Architecte de Louis XIV (Paris: 1960), 106.

29. Because Pope Innocent X installed his private church next to his residence, the Piazza Navona became the Salotto dell'Urbe, the very centre of Rome's civic life. See Christian Norberg-Schulz, Baroque Architecture (New York: 1986), 20.

30. The engraving by Giovanni Battista Bonacina dated 5 June 1654, depicts a partial view of the Piazza Navona. Surprisingly, one finds a near-complete San Agnese. See Gerhard Eimer, La fabbrica di S. Agnese in Navona (Stockholm: 1970).

31. U.V. Chatelain, Le Surintendant Foucquet: Protecteur des lettres, des arts et des sciences (Paris: 1905), 359.

32. Anthony Blunt, Art and Architecture in France: 1500-1700 (London: 1988), 229.

33. University Gallery (University of Minnesota), Inhabitants of the Enchanted Isle: French Pleasure Gardens in the Age of Grandeur (1975), 28.

34. W.H. Adarns, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 82.

35. Christopher Thacker, "Steps in the Great Garden," Daidalos (1983), 55. 72

36. Christopher Thacker, "Steps in the Great Garden," Daidalos (1983), 54. c 37. The canal is actually the re-channelled Anqueuil River. The name La Poele was used because of the frying pan shape of the basin.

38. L. Corpechot, Les jardins de /'intelligence (Paris: 1912).

39. Jacques Boyceau, Le traite du jardinage se/on les raisons de la nature et del' art (Paris: 1979 microfiche), 71.

40. Gerda Gollwitzer, "The Influence of LeNostre on the European Garden of the Eighteenth Century," Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture (1974), 78.

41. W.H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 71.

42. Jacques Boyceau, Le traite du jardinage selon les raisons de la nature et del' art (Paris: 1979 microfiche), 69 & 74.

43. Maurice Fleurent, Vaux-le-Vicomte: la clairiere enchantee (Paris: 1989), 22.

44. Comte Patrice de Vogue, Vaux-le-Vicomte (Bar-sur-Aune: n.d.), 59.

45. The artificially raised terraces were constructed as vantage points from which the c parterres could be viewed. They were used frequently in sixteenth-century France, e.g. at Ancy-le-Franc, Chenonceau, and Montceau-en-Brie among others.

46. It was called Le Parterre de la Couronne because its large pool was embellished by a crown shaped fountain. See F.H. Hazlehurst, Gardens of Illusion: The Ge­ nius of Andre LeNostre (Nashville: 1980), 42.

47. In Clelie, de Scudery describes the fountain as "... une couronne d'aigrettes, qui jaillissent et retombent avec violence." See Madeleine de Scudery, Clelie, Histoi­ re Romaine Vol. 10 (Geneve: 1973 reprint), 1129.

48. Julia Berrall, The Garden (New York: 1966), 201.

49. Each berm has a Janus-like head and represents the "seasons" of life. On the first piece, the sculptor opposes Spring to Youth, and on the second herrn, Autumn to Old Age. Subjects that refer to the cycles of Nature, and which are relevant to this garden setting. See Maurice Fleurent, Vaux-le-Vicomte: la clairiere enchantee (Paris: 1989), 50.

50. Madeleine de Scudery, Ctelie, Histoire Romaine Vol. 10 (Geneve: 1973 reprint), 1130. 73

51. Remy Saisselin, "The French Garden in the Eighteenth Century: from Belle Nature c to the Landscape of Time," Journal of Garden History (1958), 288. 52. Anita Pereire & Gabrielle Van Zuylen, Gardens ofFrance (New York: 1983), 18.

53. Madeleine de Scudery, Clelie, Histoire Romaine Vol. 10 (Geneve: 1973 reprint), 1135.

54. Ibid., 1135.

55. Robert Berger, "Gardens Cascades in Italy and France, 1565-1665," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1974), 304.

56. Her praise is followed by a detailed description of the waterworks. The seahorses are a nineteenth-century addition. See Madeleine de Scudery, Clelie, Histoire Ro­ maine Vol. 10 (Geneve: 1973 reprint), 1132.

57. If taken from Virgil's Aeneid, in short it illustrates a wrathful Neptune swinging his trident to calm down the sea. If taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Jupiter is also balancing his trident but with intent to drown the world. See Howard Hibbard, Bernini (London: 1976), 39, and, RudolfWittkower, "Bernini Studies I," The Burlington Magazine (1952), 75-76.

58. Jean de LaFontaine, Le Songe de Vaux (Geneve: 1967 reprint), 133 & 209.

59. F.H. Hazlehurst, Gardens of Illusion: The Genius of Andre LeNostre (Nashville: 1980), 44.

60. Madeleine de Scudery, Ctelie, Histoire Romaine Vol. 10 (Geneve: 1973 reprint), 1135.

61. F.H. Hazlehurst, Gardens of Illusion: The Genius of Andre LeNostre (Nashville: 1980), 44.

62. Edmond Bonnaffe, Les amateurs de l' ancienne France: Le Surintendant Foucquet (Paris: 1882), 72.

63. Naomi Miller, Heavenly Caves: Reflections on the Garden Grotto (New York: 1982), 60.

64. Ibid., 11.

65. Maurice Fleurent, Vaux-le-Vicomte: la clairiere enchantee (Paris: 1989), 22.

66. W.H. Adams, The French Garden, 1500-1800 (New York: 1979), 50. 74

67. The original Tiber sculpture was excavated in Rome in 1512. Pope Julius II acquired it soon after and installed it in the middle of the statue court of the c Belvedere. Repeatedly engraved during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was also celebrated among even the most admired antique statues. See Francis Haskell & Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (London: 1981), 310-311.

68. Madeleine de Scudery, Clelie, Histoire Romaine Vol. 10 (Geneve: 1973 reprint), 1135.

69. Anthony Blunt, The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin (London: 1966), 148.

70. Madeleine de Scudery, Clelie, Histoire Romaine Vol. 10 (Geneve: 1973 reprint), 1138.

71. From the time of its discovery in the Baths of Caracalla (1656), Glycon's Famese Hercules was admired as one of the "four finest figures from antiquity." Hercules was also considered a suitable garden subject because of the hero's adventures in the garden of the Hesperides. The copy now found at Vaux-le-Vicomte is the se­ cond replica to have stood on the spot. This present version was added in 1891 during the restoration of the gardens. See Francis Haskell & Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (London: 1981), 229-230.

0 72. Corrado Vivanti, "Henry IV, the Gallic Hercules," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute (1967), 184.

73. At Vaux, the Hercules is a cross between the classical hero of the Garden of the Hesperides, and the Gallic Hercules native to France. One element identifying Hercules to the former is the apple he bears in his right hand; while in the latter he is represented a an older, bearded man. French poets of the sixteenth century had "adopted" the elderly Hercules as a symbol of the creator of the French race. He is described in the following manner in de Alciat's Emblemata (1549):

"llz le figurent en vieillard chauve... il est vestu d'une peau de , et qu'en sa main dextre tient une massue ... "

See Marc-Rene Jung, Hercule dans la litterature fran~aise du XVIe siecle: de · l'Hercule courtois a l'Hercule Baroque (Geneve: 1966), 73 & 87.

74. Anthony Blunt, Art and Architecture in France: 1500-1700 (London: 1988), 375.

75. Madeleine de Scudery, Clelie, Histoire Romaine Vol. 10 (Geneve: 1973 reprint), 1139. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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• ------

fig.Lf- Perelle. Montceaux-en-Brie Engraving, n.d . •

• fig.S- Maratta, Carlo. Portrait of LeNostre Oil on canvas, n.d. Fig.6- LeNostre, Andre Uaux-le-Uicomte. ground plan. Drawing, n.d . •

• Fig.7- Silvestre, Israel Uaux-le-Uicomte. ground plan. Engraving, n.d. Fig.8- Silvestre, Israel Uaux-le-Uicomte. entrance facade. Engraving, n.d . •

• Fig . S- Perceval, Alain Va ux-le- Uicomte . Fig.lO- Uaux-le-Vicomte. oval salon Photograph, 1990 . •

Fig.ll- LeBrun, Charles The Palace of the Sun. • Drawing, 1660 •

Fig.12- Perelle, Gabriel Le Raincy. Engraving , 1663 •

• Fig. 13- Uaux-le-Uicomte . Photograph, n . d . Fig.l~- Uaux-le-Uicomte. ga~den facade. Photog~aph, 1990 •

• Fig.lS- Silvest~e, Is~ael Uaux-le-Uicomts. cent~al vista looking awau f~om the chateau. Eng~aving, n.d. •

Fig.16- Uaux-le-vicomte. view of the central vista . • Photograph, 1990

• Fig.17- Uaux-le-Uicomte. ground plan. Drawing, 1991 •

Fig.18- Uaux-le-Uicomte. view towards the chateau. Photograph, 1990

•

• Fig.19- Aveline Uaux-le-Uicomte. view towards the chateau. Engraving, n.d. •

Fig.20- Le Confessionnal. Photograph, 1990

•

• ig.21- Silvestre, Israel Uaux-le-Uicomte. Parterre des Fleurs. Engraving, n.d. Fig.22- Silvestre, Israel Vaux-le-Vicomte. Parterre de la Couronne. • Engraving, n.d .

Fig.23- Silvestre, Israel Vaux-le-Vicomte. view towards Le Potager. • Engraving, n.d. Fig. 2~- Silvestre, Israel Uaux-le-Uicomte. view towards La Grille d'Eau. • Engraving, n.d .

Fig.25- Uaux-le-Uicomte. view of the central allee. • Photograph, 1990 •

Fig.26- Silvestre, Israel Uaux-le-Uicomte. view of La Cascade. • Engraving, n.d .

Fig.27- Perelle, A. Meudon. the grotto. • Engraving, c.1650 fig.28- Aveline Liancourt. view of the cascade. • Engraving, n.d .

fig.29- Uaux-le-Uicomte. detail of La Cascade. • Photograph, 1990 Fig.30- Silvestre, Israel Uaux-le-Uicomte. view of the grotto and canal . • Engraving, n.d.

Fig.31- Falda, Giovanni Battista Uilla Montalto. the Neptune and Triton fountain. • Engraving, n.d. Fig.32- Uaux-le-Uicomte. view of the grotto. • Photograph, 1990

Fig.33- Uaux-le-Uicomte. view of La Gerbe and Hercules. • Photograph, 1990 •

• Fig.3~- Uaux-le-Uicomte. view of Hercules. Gilt bronze, 19th century

• ig.35- Puget, Pierre Seated Resting Hercules. Marble, c.1659