John Evelyn's "Elysium Britannicum" and European Gardening
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
This is an extract from: John Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum” and European Gardening edited by Therese O’Malley and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn published by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection Washington, D.C. as volume 17 in the series Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture © 1998 Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University Washington, D.C. Printed in the United States of America www.doaks.org/etexts.html
DUMBARTON OAKS COLLOQUIUM
ON THE HISTORY
OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
XVIIJohn Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum”
and European Gardening
Edited by
Therese O’Malley
and
Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
Washington, D.C.© 1997 Dumbarton Oaks
Trustees for Harvard University
Washington, D.C.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture
(17th : 1993)
John Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum” and European gardening /
Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture.
XVII; edited by Therese O’Malley and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn.
p. cm.
Held May 1993.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-88402-240-4
1. Evelyn, John, 1620–1706. Elysium Britannicum. 2. Gardens—England—Design—
History—17th century. 3. Gardens—Europe—Design—History—17th century. 4. Landscape
architecture—England—History—17th century. 5. Landscape architecture—Europe—History—17th
century. I. O’Malley, Therese. II. Wolschke-Bulmahn, Joachim. III. Title.
SB470.E9D85 1993
712—dc21 97—10072
CIPContents
Acknowledgments vii
Foreword 1
JOACHIM WOLSCHKE-BULMAHN
Introduction to John Evelyn and the “Elysium Britannicum” 9
THERESE O’MALLEY
John Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum”: Provenance, Condition, Transcription 35
JOHN E. INGRAM
John Evelyn: Between the Ancients and the Moderns 57
JOSEPH M. LEVINE
John Evelyn in the 1650s: A Virtuoso in Quest of a Role 79
MICHAEL HUNTER
“Elysium Britannicum not printed neere ready &c”: The “Elysium Britannicum” in
the Correspondence of John Evelyn 107
DOUGLAS CHAMBERS
“Bringing Ingenuity into Fashion”: The “Elysium Britannicum” and
the Reformation of Husbandry 131
MICHAEL LESLIE
John Evelyn and English Architecture 153
ALICE T. FRIEDMAN
Parterre, Grove, and Flower Garden: European Horticulture and
Planting Design in John Evelyn’s Time 171
MARK LAIRD
The Plants in John Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum” 221
JOHN H. HARVEYEvelyn’s Idea of the Garden: A Theory for All Seasons 269
JOHN DIXON HUNT
Appendix: A Plan by John Evelyn for Henry Howard’s Garden at Albury Park, Surrey 289
MICHAEL CHARLESWORTH
Biographies of the Authors 295
Index 299Acknowledgments
Several scholars and institutions contributed considerably to the 1993 symposium “John Evelyn’s
‘Elysium Britannicum’ and European Gardening” and to this volume, an outcome of the sympo-
sium. First, we want to thank John Ingram, University of Florida, Gainesville, who undertook the
difficult and commendable enterprise of producing the transcription of John Evelyn’s “Elysium
Britannicum.” He very generously made copies available to the participants of the symposium. John
Dixon Hunt, University of Pennsylvania, was one of the initiators of the symposium and, as co-
convener, helped guarantee its success. The editors are also grateful to John Harvey for contributing
his essay and annotated list of plants and to Michael Charlesworth for his essay. These are important
additions to this volume.The Christ Church Library at Oxford University—which at the time of the
1993 symposium was the repository of the “Elysium Britannicum”—and the trustees of the Evelyn
Trust generously granted permission for the use of photographic reproductions of the manuscript for
the presentations at the 1993 symposium, for the illustrations used in this volume, and for John
Ingram’s transcription. We want particularly to thank John Wing, librarian at Christ Church, for his
support. The British Library, London, which now owns the “Elysium Britannicum,” also generously
approved the publication of manuscript illustrations for this volume.
Therese O’Malley
Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
National Gallery of Art
Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn
Institut für Grünplanung und Gartenarchitektur
Universität Hannover
viiForeword
T he series Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture reflects a
broad range of interests in garden history. Many facets of this history have been discussed, often
with a focus on the garden design of particular nations, particular periods, or individual garden
designers. The first Studies in Landscape Architecture symposium was “The Italian Garden” (1971).
“John Claudius Loudon and the Early Nineteenth Century in Great Britain” (1978), “Mediaeval
Gardens” (1983), and “The Dutch Garden in the Seventeenth Century” (1988) were among later
subjects chosen for scholarly discourse. “The Vernacular Garden” in 1990 marked an expansion of
garden historical study at Dumbarton Oaks in that it was a symposium dedicated mainly to gardens
of the common people, rather than to those of the elite.
John Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum” and European Gardening, volume seventeen in the collo-
quium series, is an outcome of the symposium held in May 1993 at Dumbarton Oaks. It is, on the
one hand, a topic more in line with traditional interests in garden history. It refers unambiguously to
elite garden culture. On the other hand, this volume represents a novel approach in our symposium
series. Never before has Studies in Landscape Architecture had such a strongly focused topic, a focus
not just on one individual, John Evelyn (1620–1706) (Fig. 1), but also one primarily on a single
work by this individual. The “Elysium Britannicum,” a work that remained unpublished, was per-
haps for Evelyn’s contemporaries more of an enigma than anything else and, as Michael Leslie states
in his essay, “was obviously a problematic text for its author” (p. 131). That this focus is, neverthe-
less, justified and not too narrow is demonstrated by the contributions in this volume, which discuss
the manuscript and the place of Evelyn and his work in the context of seventeenth-century Euro-
pean gardening. The reader of this volume should be aware that it is a tricky scholarly undertaking
to focus one’s research on a particular individual and that individual’s work. Many biographical
studies in garden history indicate how difficult it can be to make such an individual an objective
topic of historical study without losing critical distance. This foreword does not discuss John Evelyn
as a figure and the “Elysium Britannicum” as a manuscript; rather, it mainly serves the purpose of
raising numerous questions, some of which will be answered by the contributors in their discussions
of Evelyn’s ideas on gardening, as reflected in the “Elysium Britannicum.” Therese O’Malley pro-
vides an introduction to Evelyn and to the manuscript in question.
All page references to the “Elysium Britannicum” in this volume will refer to page numbers of the original
manuscript as it was housed at Christ Church. It is now at the British Library, London. A facsimile edition, transcribed by
John Ingram, will be published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 1998 as part of a new series, Penn Studies in
Landscape Architecture, edited by John Dixon Hunt.
1JOACHIM WOLSCHKE-BULMAHN
1. Portrait of John Evelyn
(photo: from Sylva, London, 1664, frontispiece)
John Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum” is an immensely rich document containing a great deal
of information about the garden culture of the seventeenth century. Evelyn, the English virtuoso,
author, garden designer, and translator of garden books, was an intriguing intellectual. The essays
presented here show that both the life’s work of the author and the contents of the manuscript
certainly deserve analysis in the context of the international history of garden design. Some of the
authors in this volume ask, What was the purpose of Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum?” It apparently
was not intended as a pragmatic garden manual offering detailed and in-depth information about
horticulture, husbandry, and garden design to the contemporary reader, as did other works: John
Parkinson’s (1567–1650) Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris: A Garden of all Sorts of pleasant Flowers
which our English Ayre will permitt to be noursed up, published in 1629 (Fig. 2), or Evelyn’s own
Kalendarium Hortense; or, The gard’ners almanac, directing what he is to do monthly throughout the year. And
what fruits and flowers are in prime, first published as part of Sylva; or a Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the
Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions (Fig. 3) in 1664. Was the “Elysium Britannicum”
intended to be a kind of literary garden cultural Gesamtkunstwerk, a complete work of philosophy on
garden culture, through which the author wanted to discuss every facet of garden design? In his
“John Evelyn as Hortulan Saint,” Graham Parry suggests that the “Elysium Britannicum” “was
intended to describe all the skills and knowledge that were necessary to the planting of a noble
garden, but [that it] grew to be a discourse on the pleasures and virtues of gardens, and eventually
became a wondering rhapsody on the religious influence of gardens on the souls of men. Beginning
with mundane recommendations about the preparation and management of a garden, it moved to
consider the astonishing variety of decorations and ornaments that may be introduced into a garden,
and sounded a higher note when it dealt with ‘Hortulan Laws and Privileges; of Hortulan Entertain-
ments, Natural, Divine, Moral and Political, with diverse historical passages and solemnities, to
show the Beauty, Wonder, Plenty, Delight and Universal Use of Gardens.’ ”1
1
Graham Parry, “John Evelyn as Hortulan Saint,” in Michael Leslie and Timothy Raylor, eds., Culture and
Cultivation in Early Modern England: Writing and the Land, Leicester, 1992, 134.
2FOREWORD
2. Frontispiece of John Parkinson, Paradisi in 3. John Evelyn’s dedication in Sylva, London, 1664
Sole Paradisus Terrestris, London, 1629 (photo: Dumbarton Oaks)
(photo: Dumbarton Oaks)
Evelyn defines the task or, perhaps closer to Evelyn’s thinking, the mission, of the garden
designer (he used the term “Gardiner”), as follows: “To comprehend the nature of the Earth, and
her productions: To be able to discourse of the Elements and to penetrate into the nature energie and
reasons of things with judgement and assurance. In a word, What is our Gardiner to be, but an
absolute Philosopher!”2 What might Evelyn have meant by the term “Philosopher”? Apparently its
denotation was different in the seventeenth century;3 note also Richard Bradley’s 1739 book, New
Improvements of Planting and Gardening; Both Philosophical and Practical, and Evelyn’s own Terra: A
Philosophical Discourse of Earth,4 first published in 1676. The use of “philosophical” in these contexts
may have to do with a different understanding of the term “philosophy”; or it may indicate the
much greater importance and intellectual significance of horticulture, husbandry, and garden design
in the seventeenth century. The stress on philosophical discussion may, on the other hand, indicate
Evelyn’s efforts to distinguish himself from his fellow garden writers. But it may well be that, even
2
John Evelyn, “Elysium Britannicum; or The Royal Gardens in Three Books,” unpublished manuscript, British
Library, London, 4 (quoted from the transcription by John Ingram, 1992).
3
See, for example, the study of Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early
Seventeenth-Century England, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1994.
4
The full title of the 1778 edition appeared as Terra: A Philosophical Discourse of Earth. Relating to the Culture and
Improvement of it for Vegetation, and the Propagation of Plants, as it was presented to the Royal Society, York, 1778.
3JOACHIM WOLSCHKE-BULMAHN
when Evelyn raises specific garden tools to “philosophical” heights, he is just in line with the com-
mon practice of his time. Thus he describes an instrument to water flower beds as follows: “In
summ, of all the Gardiners instruments, this most is the most elegant, usefull, and Philosophicall.”5
Today, a twentieth-century scholar could be skeptical of so-called Gesamtkunstwerke and of
authors who claim to treat in one comprehensive work every aspect of a field, a discipline, or a broad
topic. Garden culture in general and the design of gardens in particular are immensely broad topics.
In many cases, detailed and focused studies may be more valuable than an overly ambitious attempt
that falls short. At Evelyn’s time, such works had a different significance. The various sciences and
the arts were not seen as separate; garden culture, for example, could be understood fully only when
based on a comprehensive discussion of all related fields. But could Evelyn really have fulfilled the
goal of writing an “Elysium Britannicum” for the elite among British garden experts, for the “best
refined of our Nation who delight in gardens, and aspire to the perfections of the Arte”?6 Or was the
“Elysium Britannicum,” in the end, similar to his “History of Trades,” about which it has been
stated, “It was too ambitious and diverse.”?7
The fact that Evelyn continued working on the “Elysium Britannicum” for more than four
decades indicates the enormous importance of this opus for him, such that he did not stop working
on it and did not want to publish the manuscript with its shortcomings. A number of questions
emerge from this reasoning: What, for example, could have motivated an English intellectual in the
seventeenth century to work for such a long time on a manuscript about garden culture and design?
Was it merely a personal obsession, or was the topic of overwhelming general importance in this
particular period? What was the intellectual world, the cultural, social, and political milieu at that
time in England in general and in Evelyn’s environment in particular? Furthermore, what were the
consequences of working for such a long time on one manuscript? Did it, in the end, come close to
perfection? Did the many changes and additions Evelyn made over the decades improve the “Elysium
Britannicum” and keep it up-to-date with the latest knowledge? And, as Evelyn claims in the chap-
ter “Of Coronary Gardens, Flowers, & rare Plants,” did those changes and additions help “to give
the most perfect accomplishment we are able to the Argument”?8 Or did these changes merely make
for incoherence in the manuscript? What was the scholarly quality of the “Elysium Britannicum?”
Was the botanical, garden cultural, and technical information of the “Elysium Britannicum” up-to-
date or even ahead of its time, or was it only a compilation of knowledge and ideas that were
widespread in the seventeenth century, with parts of it perhaps already outdated? What was the
significance of this never-published work in its own time? Who knew about it, who could discuss it,
contribute to it, or benefit from it? Was it unimportant in its time, except to its author and those to
5
Evelyn, “Elysium Britannicum,” 47. That the discussion and depiction of garden tools in a 16th- or 17th-
century manuscript could have “more subtle meanings” than today and could be “charged with symbolic values” has
been discussed by Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi in her article, “Projects for Botanical and Other Gardens: A Sixteenth-
Century Manual,” Journal of Garden History 3 (1983), 1–34.
6
Evelyn, “Elysium Britannicum,” 10.
7
Parry, “Hortulan Saint,” 134.
8
Evelyn, “Elysium Britannicum,” 275.
4FOREWORD
4. Title page of Charles Cotton, The Planters Manual, London, 1675 (photo: Dumbarton Oaks)
whom he had sent copies of chapters for their comments? Or did it have an impact on contemporary
and subsequent ideas about garden culture? We might also inquire about Evelyn’s actual ideas on
garden design. What, for example, are the differences between his ideas and those of his contempo-
raries? Were Evelyn’s ideas in fashion or did his particular place in society, his personal biography,
contribute to ideas about gardens that contradicted those of other English authors of the time? For
example, the anti-French attitude demonstrated by such contemporaries as Charles Cotton (1630–
87) in his 1675 booklet The Planters Manual (Fig. 4) apparently was not shared by Evelyn. In this
work, Cotton states that the English people “are already sufficiently Frenchised, and more than in the
opinion of the wiser sort of men, is consistent either with the constitution, or indeed, the honour of
the English Nation.”9 Evelyn, by contrast, often referred to French garden writers and French gar-
dens in a positive way, and he translated Nicolas de Bonnefons’ Le jardinier françois. Evelyn wanted to
write an “Elysium Britannicum.” How would this “Elysium Britannicum” be distinguished from an
“Elysium Italicum” or an “Elysium Gallicum”? Or was it his particular intention to make Italian and
French knowledge about gardening available for the future English garden? Was his “Elysium
Britannicum” perhaps aimed at a supranational, or European, future of garden design, which is
suggested by some of the authors in this volume?
9
C. Cotton, The Planters Manual: Being Instructions for the Raising, Planting, and Cultivating all sorts of Fruit-Trees,
whether Stone-fruits or Pepin-fruits, with their Natures and Seasons. Very useful for such as are Curious in Planting and Grafting,
London, 1675, n.p.
5JOACHIM WOLSCHKE-BULMAHN
Evelyn’s frequent references to Greek and Latin authors on garden culture, including
Theophrastus, Pliny, and Virgil, is another striking characteristic of the manuscript. This, above all,
may be proof of his broad classical education, but it may also say something about his ideas on garden
design. Did he write in conscious rejection or in confirmation of those ancient authors? Does his
interpretation of ancient ideas about garden culture differ from those ideas that were published, for
example, by Richard Bradley in his 1725 Survey of the Ancient Husbandry and Gardening, collected from
Varro, Columella, Virgil, and others the most eminent Writers among the Greeks and Romans? Bradley
describes the need for his study as follows: “It is not less surprising than unfortunate, that the Hus-
bandry of the Ancients has not hitherto been made familiar to our English Gardiners and Husband-
men; since every one who has naturely consider’d the Works of Columella, Varro, Cato, Paladius,
etc. must have discover’d many extraordinary Things in those Authors, for the benefiting of Estates,
by Planting, Sowing, Graffing, Feeding of Cattle, and of Enriching the Ground by other Means,
unpractis’d in our Days; tho’ in the ancient Times, they were of great Profit to the Lords of the
Soil.”10 Did Evelyn discuss the “extraordinary Things” of the ancient scholars mentioned by Brad-
ley? Or was it simply common practice to refer to these authors, much the same as one finds Goethe
quoted so frequently by German authors attempting to give their work greater erudition and au-
thority?
What were Evelyn’s actual ideas concerning garden design? Could anyone, after having read
the “Elysium Britannicum,” design or paint an ideal Evelyn garden? Would that have been possible?
Or did Evelyn offer sometimes inconsistent and, perhaps, even contradictory ideas about garden
design? Would the garden one derived from his manuscript resemble one of the garden representa-
tions done by the seventeenth-century Dutch artists Knyff and Kip? Or would it more resemble an
Escher print,11 in which everything looks very convincing and correct at first glance but which, after
one studies the image more carefully, reveals that nothing really fits together, that it is full of contra-
dictions and impossibilities? Has anyone, for example, ever examined the correctness of the infor-
mation in the “Elysium Britannicum”? Perhaps Evelyn’s instructions, for example, on “How to
make a chaire which shall wett those that sit upon it, though no water appeare,”12 are correct and
would give unambiguous information to the craftsman who wanted to design this type of garden
furniture. But can one trust his other, more complicated descriptions of how to construct fountains
and other garden ornaments? Evelyn himself apparently sometimes questioned his own instructions.
Take, for example, his statements in chapter twelve of the manuscript on how to construct “artificial
Echo’s, Musick, & Hydraulick motions.”13 Note further that, after many pages of seemingly detailed
10
R. Bradley, A Survey of the Ancient Husbandry and Gardening, collected from Cato, Varro, Columella, Virgil, and others
the most eminent Writers among the Greeks and Romans, London, 1725, A1.
11
Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898–1970), Dutch graphic artist. “Escher composed works notable for their irony,
often with impossible perspectives rendered with mechanical verisimilitude. He created visual riddles, playing with the
pictorially logical and the visually impossible.” The Columbia Encyclopedia, 5th ed., B. A. Chernow and G. A. Vallasi, eds.,
New York, 1993.
12
Evelyn, “Elysium Britannicum,” 132.3.
13
Evelyn, “Elysium Britannicum,” 167.
6FOREWORD
descriptions on “How to build another Sort of Windchest for the Animation of Birds,”14 Evelyn
ends the chapter with the explanation to the reader that he does not pursue “the subject of Hydraulique
& other Automata,” because, “being not fully convinced of the possibility of the Thing, we leave it
to the profunder Artists, & to those who shall square the Circle having (for our owne part) promised
our Gardiner, to deliver (as neere as may be) none but solid, and unsophisticated experiments.”15
Was this only the modest understatement of a seventeenth-century intellectual, or does it serve as
one example of perhaps many inconsistencies in Evelyn’s manuscript, which may explain why the
“Elysium Britannicum” was never published and remained unfinished?
The significance of the manuscript for the study of garden history is beyond question. It is a
treasure trove of information about seventeenth-century ideas of garden culture, social history, Evelyn’s
significance for the field of garden design, and many other related aspects of the time. It tells us about
the state of knowledge in the field of garden culture in this period. To find the treasure requires
some hunting, including delving into many detailed studies and critical analyses. The authors repre-
sented in this volume have done a great deal of work in that regard, and their contributions will
surely stimulate future research.16
Therese O’Malley and I, as co-editors, have already thanked all those who have been involved
in this project and who have contributed considerably to the effort to get this volume published. As
director of Studies in Landscape Architecture at the time of the symposium, I thank Therese O’Malley
and my predecessor, John Dixon Hunt. In 1991 they organized, in collaboration with John Ingram,
a roundtable discussion at Dumbarton Oaks on Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum,” subsequently de-
veloped further the symposium topic, in collaboration with the Senior Fellows Committee of Stud-
ies in Landscape Architecture, and, as co-convenors, contributed considerably to the success of the
gathering.
Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn
14
Evelyn, “Elysium Britannicum,” 191.
15
Evelyn, “Elysium Britannicum,” 199.
16
This research may be supported by the recent publication of various titles of John Evelyn on microfiche, among
them Terra, Kalendarium Hortense, and several editions of Sylva. The series is John Evelyn—An English Virtuoso: Books
from the Garden Library at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., on microfiche, Inter Documentation Company,
Leiden, 1995.
7You can also read
