Locus Amoenus Renaissance Studies Special Issue Book Series This series of special issue books is published in association with the journal Renaissance Studies. Both the journal and book series are multi-disciplinary and publish articles and editions of documents on all aspects of Renaissance history and culture. The articles range over the history, art, architecture, religion, literature, and languages of Europe during the period. Also available: Locus Amoenus: Gardens and Horticulture in the Renaissance Edited by Alexander Samson Re-thinking Renaissance Objects: Design, Function and Meaning Edited by Peta Motture and Michelle O’Malley The Renaissance Conscience Edited by Harald E. Braun and Edward Vallance Spaces, Objects and Identities in Early Modern Italian Medicine Edited by Sandra Cavallo and David Gentilcore Approaching the Italian Renaissance Interior: Sources, Methodologies, Debates Edited by Marta Ajmar-Wollheim, Flora Dennis and Ann Matchette Beyond the Palio: Urbanism and Ritual in Renaissance Siena Edited by Philippa Jackson and Fabrizio Nevola The Biography of the Object in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy Edited by Roberta J. M. Olson, Patricia L. Reilly and Rupert Shepherd The Renaissance and the Celtic Countries Edited by Ceri Davies and John E. Law Asian Travel in the Renaissance Edited by Daniel Carey Locus Amoenus Gardens and Horticulture in the Renaissance Edited by Alexander Samson A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication This edition first published 2012 Originally published as Volume 25, Issue 1 of Renaissance Studies Chapters © 2012 The Authors Editorial organization © 2012 The Society for Renaissance Studies and Blackwell Publishing Ltd Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. 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If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this book. Locus amoenus : gardens and horticulture in the Renaissance / edited by Alexander Samson. p. cm. “Originally published as volume 25, issue 1 of Renaissance studies”–T.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4443-6151-3 (paper) – ISBN 978-1-4443-9675-1 (ePDF) – ISBN 978-1-4443-9677-5 (Wiley Online Library) – ISBN 978-1-4443-9676-8 (ePub) 1. Gardens–Europe, Western–History–16th century. 2. Gardens–Social aspects–Europe, Western–History– 16th century. 3. Gardening–Europe, Western–History–16th century. 4. Horticulture–Europe, Western–History– 16th century. 5. Gardens, Renaissance–History. 6. Gardens in literature. 7. European literature–Renaissance, 1450-1600–History and criticism. 8. Renaissance. 9. Europe, Western–Social life and customs–16th century. 10. Europe, Western–Intellectual life–16th century. I. Samson, Alexander. II. Renaissance studies. SB466.E92L63 2012 635.09′031–dc23 2011042245 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Set in 10/12 pt New Baskerville by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited 1 2012 English School, detail of Portrait, probably Sir George Delves, 1577, oil on panel, 218 × 133.8 cm (© Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool) Front Cover: English School, Portrait, probably Sir George Delves, 1577, oil on panel, 218 × 133.8 cm (© Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool) Contents Notes on contributors ix Introduction Locus amoenus: gardens and horticulture in the Renaissance Alexander Samson 1 1 The world of the Renaissance herbal Brent Elliott 24 2 Clinging to the past: medievalism in the English ‘Renaissance’ garden Paula Henderson 42 3 River gods: personifying nature in sixteenth-century Italy Claudia Lazzaro 70 4 Dissembling his art: ‘Gascoigne’s Gardnings’ Susan C. Staub 95 5 ‘My innocent diversion of gardening’: Mary Somerset’s plants Jennifer Munroe 111 6 Outdoor pursuits: Spanish gardens, the huerto and Lope de Vega’s Novelas a Marcia Leonarda Alexander Samson 124 7 Experiencing the past: the archaeology of some Renaissance gardens Brian Dix 151 Index 183 Notes on contributors Brian Dix is an archaeologist specializing in historic gardens and their land- scapes. He has worked extensively throughout mainland Europe in addition to investigating major British sites. He is a former Course Tutor at the Archi- tectural Association, London and co-author of Peopling Past Landscapes among other publications. Brent Elliott is the Historian of the Royal Horticultural Society, having pre- viously been its Librarian and Archivist for twenty-five years. He is the author of Victorian Gardens (1986), Flora (2001), and The Royal Horticultural Society: a History 1804–2004 (2004) among other works. Formerly the editor of Garden History, he is currently the editor of Occasional Papers from the RHS Lindley Library. Most recently, he has been editing for publication part of The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, due to appear in 2012 as series B Volume VII of that catalogue raisonnée under the title Flora: the Paris Manuscripts. Paula Henderson is an independent architectural and garden historian. Her many publications include articles in Architectural History, Garden History and The British Art Journal, as well as essays in Albion’s Classicism: The Visual Arts in Britain, 1550–1660 and Patronage, Culture and Power: The Early Cecils, 1558– 1612. Her first book, The Tudor House and Garden: Architecture and Landscape in the 16th and Early 17th Centuries, won the Berger Prize for British Art History. She is currently completing a book on gardens in Tudor and Stuart London. Claudia Lazzaro is Professor of History of Art at Cornell University. She is the author of The Italian Renaissance Garden and many articles on villas and gardens, as well as co-editor of Donatello among the Blackshirts: History and Modernity in the Visual Culture of Fascist Italy. She is currently working on images of cultural identity in sixteenth-century Florence. Jennifer Munroe is Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she teaches courses on early modern literature and culture, Shakespeare, film, and literary theory. She is author of Gender and the Garden in Early Modern English Literature and editor of Making Gardens of Their Own: Gardening Manuals For Women 1550–1750. She is also co-editor of Ecofeminist Approaches to Early Modernity. Her current book project looks at the relationship between women and the natural world as it bears on the development of early modern science. x Notes on contributors Alexander Samson lectures in Golden Age Literature in the Spanish and Latin American Studies department at University College London. He has pub- lished widely in the fields of Anglo-Spanish intercultural relations, Mary Tudor and her marriage to Philip II, translation, early modern travel writing and the comedia. Susan C. Staub is Professor of English at Appalachian State University, where she teaches Early Modern literature. She is author of Nature’s Cruel Stepdames: Murderous Women in the Street Literature of Seventeenth Century England and various essays on Spenser, Shakespeare, and Gascoigne and is editor of The Literary Mother: Essays on Representations of Maternity and Childcare and Mother’s Advice Books, Volume 3 in The Early Modern Englishwoman: A Facsimile Library of Essential Works, series II. Her book-in-progress is on Shakespeare’s gardens. Introduction Locus amoenus: gardens and horticulture in the Renaissance Alexander Samson Annihilating all that’s made To a green thought in a green shade. Andrew Marvell, ‘The Garden’.1 Gardens, horticulture and their literary representation intersected with many of the critical, defining social transformations of the early modern period; from shifting