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Preface
It is with great pleasure that we welcome the reader to this, the first volume ever put together on the subject of Byzantine gardens. Presented here are the revised versions of papers delivered by scholars expert on different facets of Byzantine history and/or garden history at the colloquium “Byzantine Garden Culture,” which was held in November 1996 at Dumbarton Oaks. Information on the genesis of this colloquium can be found in the first two papers of this volume written by Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn and Antony Littlewood.
We should like to thank Angeliki Laiou, the director of Dumbarton Oaks at the time, who offered us the opportunity of holding the colloquium. Especial thanks are due also to the director of Byzantine Studies, Alice-Mary Talbot, and the then-acting director of Studies in Landscape Architecture, Terence Young, both of whom wholeheartedly supported the project and graciously hosted the colloquium. Antony Littlewood Henry Maguire Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn
The Study of Byzantine Gardens:
Some Questions and Observations from a Garden Historian Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn The Study of Byzantine Gardens at Dumbarton Oaks This book is the end result of initiatives of a group of scholars affiliated with Dumbarton Oaks that date back to the early 1980s, a time when the collaboration of scholars interested in Byzantine studies and their colleagues interested in the history of gardens was not in evidence.
It was a time in the evolution of Dumbarton Oaks when its director, Giles Constable, pointed out with regret that there had never been a symposium combining the three disciplines of Byzantine, Pre-Columbian, and garden studies: “The diversity of the three fields of study at Dumbarton Oaks, which resist even the hardiest efforts to build bridges between them, creates tensions between both groups and individuals which will probably never entirely go away.”1 Yet it was also a time of transition. During the following years the situation changed slowly and the intellectual climate at Dumbarton Oaks became more and more conducive to building bridges and to starting discussion of topics of mutual interest among the departments. Of course, due to the specific character and interests of each of the three programs, there have been only limited possibilities for collaboration, but garden studies is one of them, and a fascinating one. In 1984 plans for a colloquium on Byzantine gardens were discussed by the Byzantine scholars Robert Browning, Antony Littlewood, I would like to thank the many scholars who have discussed issues of Byzantine garden culture with me, beginning with my time as a fellow at Dumbarton Oaks in 1989–90, especially Robert Browning, Anthony Cutler, Alexander Kazhdan, and Henry Maguire, who were among the first to provide me with bibliographic guidance toward the scant resources that exist on the topic.
Anthony Cutler’s encouragement to pursue my interest and numerous stimulating discussions with him helped me formulate questions on Byzantine garden culture, many of which are reflected in this essay. Linda Safran’s discussion of a paper that I presented at the 1991 Dumbarton Oaks roundtable on Byzantine gardens, jointly organized by the programs of Byzantine Studies and Studies in Landscape Architecture, as well as her editorial expertise on this work, were of great help to me as a “non-Byzantinist” exploring this fascinating topic. I also would like to thank the anonymous reader of an earlier version of my introductory remarks for his or her comments. I am grateful to Antony Littlewood for his careful reading of this essay and for his significant suggestions and corrections.
and Henry Maguire, with Elisabeth Blair MacDougall, then director of Studies in Landscape Architecture.2 These efforts did not bear immediate fruit, but were taken up again some years later. One outcome was a roundtable, “Gardens and Garden Culture in Byzantium,” held in the fall of 1991, the first scholarly event in the history of Dumbarton Oaks to join two of its fields of study. It was organized by Henry Maguire, then director of Byzantine Studies, and myself as acting director of Studies in Landscape Architecture.
On the one hand, the papers presented at this roundtable and its subsequent discussion could only hope to raise some valuable questions and elucidate once again how little is known about Byzantine gardens. On the other hand, they helped stimulate interest in the topic among a broader group of scholars. In 1994 Antony Littlewood suggested a follow-up event on Byzantine gardens. His suggestion resulted in the colloquium held in November 1996 “Byzantine Garden Culture,” which brought together a group of garden historians and scholars who are experts in Byzantine studies, with varying interests and expertise, some of them focusing their research on Byzantine garden culture for the first time.
The title of the colloquium, “Byzantine Garden Culture,” already indicated that the focus was not exclusively on gardens, but that the speakers approached the topic more broadly, investigating issues related to horticulture and gardening as well as the actual design of gardens in Byzantium and how they were reflected in the arts, literature, and other spheres of Byzantine life. Garden History as a Scholarly Discipline Dealing with Byzantium and the Byzantine period may be of interest for garden historians. Garden historical studies deal with a unique subject that distinguishes it from the study of more static art and architecture. Gardens as works of art are different from other art objects. They are in a permanent process of change, development, and perhaps even decay due to their most important component: the plants. The garden’s vulnerability, its transience, sets it apart from architecture. It also creates particular problems for research. Gardens are exposed to human use. The interests of humans in gardens change over time; accordingly the design and layout of gardens often vary with changes in taste.
Garden historians and archaeologists often have to decipher the various layers of a garden that have been changed over the centuries. Gardens occupy a liminal space, a locus of tension between the practical and the pleasurable, between horticulture and the reality of food production, economy, art, and the ideology of cultural symbolism. Garden historical studies today try to address this broad range of issues. Traditionally there has been a focus on the study of gardens and parks of the elite as works of art in various cultures and societies. This scholarly tradition is also reflected in Byzantine studies. The Aretai Palace and its garden,3 or automata as art objects and features of palaces and gardens,4 are representative of this important aspect of Byzantine garden studies. Gardens and garden culture of the common people are a more recent interest in the field of garden history.
The range of issues related to historic gardens in general, and Byzantine garden culture in particular, cannot be investigated by a single scholarly discipline. Garden history requires, perhaps more than many other disciplines, a broad interdisciplinary approach. Scholars today look for evidence of gardens in literary sources, for example, in the Byzantine romances and in hagiographic, legal, and other texts. Each of these groups of texts has to be read and interpreted in slightly different ways, which requires expertise in Byzantine history as well as in the specialized subdiscipline. Archaeological expertise is as important as knowledge about art history. Botany, the social sciences, and philosophy also contribute to a better understanding of gardens and garden culture in historical societies. The forming of a discipline of garden historical studies itself was a phenomenon of the nineteenth century, especially in its second half.
It was connected to processes of professionalization from horticulture, landscape gardening, and garden art into landscape architecture. A milestone in the process of forming a profession of landscape architecture was the establishment of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 1899. Colleges for horticulture and landscape gardening were established, and the history of gardens gained new importance as part of the curriculum. In Germany the first horticultural college was established in 1823, the Königliche Gärtner-Lehranstalt zu Schöneberg und Potsdam.5 Over the course of the following 150 years the discipline of garden-historical studies slowly evolved.
Today not only garden historians, art historians, and landscape architects are involved, but also social scientists, anthropologists, geographers, and scholars from other disciplines as well. Garden history is a rather new scholarly discipline, still in the process of defining itself and shaping its subject, goals, approaches, and methods. A recent example of the broadening of the subject of garden historical study is the renaming of the Journal of Garden History, founded and edited by John Dixon Hunt, as Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in 1998. However, the interest in the history of gardens is not limited to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Already during the sixteenth and following centuries intellectuals were interested in the history of gardens. A major step in the evolution of related interests can be traced back to the Renaissance, when a systematic analysis of ancient history aided the development of such disciplines as architecture, medicine, natural science, and engineering. Intellectuals interested in horticulture and gardens also discussed antiquity in its relevance for present and future developments. David Coffin, in his Gardens and Gardening in Papal Rome, addresses a special problem with gardens as compared to, for example, Renaissance sculpture and painting, which were guided by ancient models: In contrast [to Renaissance sculpture and painting], gardening because of its ephemerality had no physical remains from classical antiquity to aid in any desire to classicize the garden. Even the ancient painted depictions of Roman gardens uncovered later at Pompeii or the House of Livia at Prima Porta were unknown to the Renaissance. The only evidence regarding ancient gardens available to the period was the literary references to gardens in classical poetry, the agricultural writings of the Res Rusticae Scriptores [sic], or the letters of Pliny the Younger, and of these only Pliny preserved a detailed image of an ancient Roman garden. . . . The limited information regarding ancient gardening may partly explain the lateness of the appearance of what might be defined as a Renaissance garden based on classical thought, and the persistence of the medieval hortus conclusus as seen previously in the garden of Pope Paul III in the Vatican.6 Richard Bradley’s 1725 treatise, 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, may serve as an example for the interest of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scholarship in ancient horticulture, botany, and gardening. The life and work of the English virtuoso and writer John Evelyn (1620–1706) also gives evidence of this interest. His unpublished manuscript “Elysium Britannicum” included a chapter titled “Of the most famous Gardens in the World, Ancient and Modern.”7 Since then there has been an increasing interest in the history of gardens. Over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries one can find historical overviews in various publications, for instance, in Christian Cajus Laurentz Hirschfeld’s Theorie der Gartenkunst.8 A milestone in establishing garden historical studies was John Claudius Loudon’s Encyclopaedia of Gardening, first published in 1822. Loudon’s work includes a substantial “General history of gardening in all countries,” which became part of the subtitle of Loudon’s Encyclopaedia. Book One, entitled “History of gardening among ancient and modern nations,” includes a “Chronological history of gardening, from the time of the Roman kings, in the sixth century .., to the decline and fall of the Empire in the fifth century of our era,”9 and a “Chronological history of gardening in continental Europe, from the time of the Romans to the present day, or from .. 500 to .. 1850.”10 Loudon discusses ancient Greek and Roman garden culture and subsequent developments in Italy. The Middle Ages in general, and particularly Byzantium, are hardly mentioned. This reflects the focus on ancient history, originating in the Renaissance. Loudon’s historical treatise was followed by numerous late-nineteenth-century publications on garden design and garden art that included chapters on garden history. In Germany, Eduard Petzold contributed to this discussion with Die Landschaftsgärtnerei (1862),11 as did Gustav Meyer with Lehrbuch der schönen Gartenkunst (1862).12 Another history of gardens written by a German was Bernhard Oswin Hüttig’s Geschichte des Gartenbaus, which appeared in 1879.13 In 1888 Hermann Jäger published his Gartenkunst und Gärten sonst und jetzt: Handbuch für Gärtner, Architekten und Liebhaber. Jäger’s work is noteworthy because it was one of the first German publications to address specifically issues of Byzantine gardens (Jäger used the term “oströmisches Reich” for the Byzantine Empire). Jäger elaborated on the lack of knowledge about the actual design of the gardens of, for example, Constantine VII and Justinian II and offered the following general description of the “Philopation”: At the time of the Crusades there existed in Byzantium a famous public garden called Thilopation [Philopation]. Almost each day the court and its attendants appeared there to be admired by the people. There were flowers and quiet bushes, alleys for driving and riding and walkways, pavilions for delight [Lustgebäude] and colorful tents, and pleasures and entertainment of all kinds. Even a game park existed with all sorts of animals, and in secure pits they kept wild animals. In this garden one also could find flowing water, fountains, and ponds with exotic aquatic birds. All this may be true, but one cannot learn from the given information what the garden really looked like. But we surely can assume that symmetry was predominating.14 It is regrettable that we do not know on which sources Jäger’s remarks on Byzantine garden art were based. In 1914 Marie Luise Gothein published her Geschichte der Gartenkunst, an impressive work and one of the first to include a substantial chapter in its own right on Byzantine gardens. Gothein stated, “Unfortunately the accounts in literature are not yet confirmed by excavations, and the information about gardens is very scanty. The picture which we have shows what is found in all Byzantine civilization—a combination of Graeco-Roman and Asiatic elements.”15 In the decades following Gothein’s History of Garden Art there was little work on Byzantine gardens, and, as far as I know, there were no specific contributions by garden historians to the topic. Several reasons might explain this absence of garden historical efforts in this field. One is that garden historians, at least in Germany, mainly focused their studies on western traditions beginning with the Renaissance. One exception, Dieter Hennebo in his 1987 work Gärten des Mittelalters, touched on Byzantine gardens in a general way, without offering new information.16 In addition, there existed and still exist considerable difficulties for garden historians regarding language and accessibility of sources needed to study Byzantine garden culture. Moreover, scholars in the field of Byzantine studies approached this topic only occasionally (see Antony Littlewood, “The Scholarship of Byzantine Gardens,” in this volume). The entry “Garden” in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium may not be emblematic for the still enormous gaps in our knowledge about Byzantine gardens, but may indicate how little the publications on Byzantine gardens have made their way into mainstream Byzantine scholarship.17 Questions regarding the Study of Byzantine Gardens Why is it of particular interest now for garden historians, and for scholars of Byzantine history as well, to approach a period where scholars have discovered only a few pieces of evidence about garden-related issues? What may garden historians contribute to our knowledge about this facet of Byzantine culture? Byzantium provides a connection among such different cultures and periods as ancient Greece and Rome, Persia, and the world of Islam. With regard to Rome, thanks to the work of Wilhelmina Jashemski and other scholars, we have considerable information about the layout and design of gardens of various groups within Roman society.18 Regarding ancient Greek gardens, the state of research is, as with Byzantine gardens, far more fragmentary in character. Studies by Massimo Venturi Ferriolo, Robin Osborne, and Maureen Carroll-Spillecke serve as good examples of scholarship on Greek gardens.19 Because the Byzantine Empire bridges late antiquity and the Renaissance, knowledge about Byzantine culture is crucial for understanding western civilization. It is therefore to be expected that some explication of Byzantine horticulture, gardening, and garden design could lead to a better understanding of the evolution of gardens and horticulture in Europe. Perhaps the many entries in lexika about classical history on horticulture, botany, and gardens can broaden our knowledge of Byzantine gardens and how related ideas and expertise permeated from late antiquity to the Byzantine period.20 What can we learn about Byzantine horticulture and botany by studying scholarship on Greek medicine, botany, and horticulture, for example, in Wilhelm Capelle’s 1954 “Der Garten des Theophrast?”21 A systematic study of Byzantine traditions might aid the scholarly development of garden history precisely because of the lack of information about Byzantine gardens, the lack of archaeological evidence, of plans and realistic depictions of gardens, or of trustworthy literary descriptions. On the one hand this lack of information is a reason to lament, but it also offers an interesting opportunity for garden history. Too often garden historians have looked first, and sometimes only, at gardens, at the physical object itself, its archaeological remains, plans, maps, and depictions of gardens. Obviously this is important, but it might result in an overly narrow understanding of garden culture in a given society. Too often garden historians have tended to ignore and overlook other important evidence necessary to understand the role of gardens within a society. In the case of Byzantium, because of the nature of its surviving evidence, we have to look systematically into other spheres of Byzantine society and culture. For example, works of art and literary sources, including legal, religious, and literary texts, are critical to find hidden traces of garden culture, texts that otherwise would have been ignored by the garden historian. The scholars contributing to this volume have investigated this area of research. Thus for garden history, a hypothetical approach to questions that is based on developments in other, better investigated spheres of Byzantine life may provide a paradigm for developing better ideas about the theory of gardens and for strengthening the theoretical foundation of garden history as a scholarly discipline in general. The Question of Continuity and Discontinuity in Byzantine Garden Culture It might therefore be helpful to apply to gardens hypotheses that have been developed for other spheres of Byzantine life. For example, one issue that is not new to the field of Byzantine studies but has not yet been discussed with regard to gardens in Byzantium is that of “continuity and discontinuity.” Among other investigations of the topic, I refer to Alexander Kazhdan and Anthony Cutler’s “Continuity and Discontinuity in Byzantine History.”22 The question of continuity and discontinuity in the design and use of Byzantine gardens should be considered regarding the transition from late antiquity to the early Byzantine period as well as within the epoch of the Byzantine Empire itself. We have evidence that discontinuity was a remarkable phenomenon between late antiquity and the Byzantine period, even if different opinions exist about its extent. Cyril Mango refers to a “dramatic break between the lifestyle of Late Antiquity and that of the Byzantine Middle Ages”;23 Charalampos Bouras mentions a “fundamental break in the evolution of the cities.”24 The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium states about Byzantine cities: “In the 7th c., cities underwent fundamental and permanent transformations as they reduced in size and population; their public works and services came to an end. They generally became ruralized.”25 Did such changes and developments also have an impact on Byzantine gardens? If yes, how? If Byzantine cities during this time were exposed to such change, if whole cities in some parts of the Byzantine Empire shrank into small towns or were even totally abandoned, then it is to be expected that this development also had an impact on garden culture and the design and use of gardens. A decline of the cities, for example, had to be connected with the decline and decay of gardens owned by the wealthy aristocrats. Not only the clientele that demanded pleasure gardens may be supposed to have decreased, but also the number of people who could design and take care of these gardens, and who produced the wealth that enabled a minority to own and enjoy marvelous pleasure gardens. Until the sixth century, gardens in all probability remained in the tradition of the Greco-Roman world. Characteristics of Byzantine gardens can perhaps best be found in those periods following the seventh and eighth centuries, for example, the so-called Age of Recovery and Consolidation, a period in which “the ‘classic’ form of the Byzantine centralized and ‘totalitarian’ state was established, and ideological and cultural uniformity was superimposed upon society.”26 After the decline of the cities an urban revival took place from about the ninth until the eleventh or twelfth centuries. This development no doubt led to a new demand for pleasure gardens, and it would be unlikely that with regard to the layout and design of these new gardens, the tradition of late antiquity was resumed without any changes. Of course, it is possible that the influence of late antiquity was still noticeable, and it is also probable that during the former period an aristocracy still existed that kept the tradition of pleasure gardens alive. Yet the subsequent urban revival probably allowed new influences to be more easily introduced. The period between the tenth and twelfth centuries was marked by the transformation of the ruling elite and the rise of new noble families, who kept their wealth and political influence over several generations, surely a situation that could have promoted the rise of new and elaborate pleasure gardens. Would it therefore be worthwhile to study the literary sources of this period in the search for garden historical evidence?
Regarding the layout and use of gardens, the shift from pagan to Christian patronage should be explored to determine what its impact was on garden culture. For example, statues of garden-related deities such as Priapus, Hermes, and Pan were a common feature of gardens in late antiquity and not only in the gardens of the nobility. The presence of such deities in gardens may suggest a religious dimension of gardens in late antiquity. An epigram on a statue of Hermes guarding a garden says, “Wayfarer, come not near the vines, nor yet the apples, nor where the medlars grow, but pass me by there along the rope, so as not to disturb or break off any of these things which the gardener Midon got with labour. He it was who set me up here, but if thou give not ear to me, thou shalt know how Hermes rewards wicked men.”27 Mango describes how the statues of pagan divinities were in use over centuries after late antiquity and that a “new ‘folkloristic’ significance arose in their popular imagination.”28 Or is it to be supposed that statues of pagan deities disappeared gradually over the centuries from the Byzantine garden? We might also wonder whether one can notice an increasing Islamic influence. From the ninth century until the twelfth century in particular, traces of contact with the Islamic world are perceptible in Byzantine culture.29 The reign of Emperor Theophilos, for example, is considered by Müller-Wiener as “the epoch of strongest influence on the Byzantine world by Arab culture.”30 In this context he refers to the gorgeous furnishings of the palace, such as the mechanical toys, as well as the extravagant gardens. But was the influence exercised by the Islamic world on the imperial palace in Constantinople also reflected in the gardens of the noble and wealthy people or in the gardens of the common people? Is the example of the palace sufficient to draw inferences about Byzantine gardens in general? The question of continuity and discontinuity has other ramifications as well. What impact did the “striking differences” between the ancient and the Byzantine family, which have been summarized in their impact on urban life as the change “from ancient ‘open’ house” to “the medieval ‘closed’ habitat,”31 have on garden culture? Did the function of parks, squares, and other public open spaces in this period change in accordance with the change from the public role of the citizen to that of a more private retreat in Byzantine society?32 With Christianization, a new type of garden arose, the gardens of the monasteries, which had an enormous impact on western European garden culture.33 The study of monastic garden culture continues to have considerable gaps, but we know that knowledge concerning horticulture, gardening, and about newly introduced plants was spread by Byzantine monks and nuns, influencing garden culture in Europe and elsewhere over many centuries.
For a systematic study of Byzantine garden culture the list of questions to be addressed can be enlarged. A few more of these questions illustrate the point. Did the Byzantine garden ever exist? Or is it to be expected that in an empire with more than a thousand years of history, with a multinational population living in “a variety of climatic and agricultural zones,”34 there existed at the same time a multitude of different forms of gardens? Did a particular Byzantine garden style evolve from the integration of characteristics of its historic predecessors? What, in the final analysis, was characteristic of Byzantine gardens? Was it the layout of gardens, the use of statuary, the cultivation of specific plants? What elements composed a Byzantine garden? Did the improvement of such horticultural techniques as breeding and pruning give new impulses to garden culture? Did specific garden features exist based on newly invented craftsmen’s techniques and newly developed building materials? The profession of the gardener in Byzantine culture is also worth exploring. Probably this existed as independent and distinguishable from other professions. For this we have some evidence from the later period of Byzantine history. The Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit makes reference to gardeners, even if only a few. Thus there are 11 references to gardeners, but more than 450 to bishops and archbishops, more than 2,500 to landed proprietors, and nearly 60 to prostitutes. Yet we cannot form absolute conclusions concerning reality in Byzantine life from these figures. First of all, they may tell us more about the interests of those who wrote the texts and documents on which the figures are based. Therefore, what position did the gardener hold in Byzantine society? Would the answer to this question tell us something about the significance of gardens and horticulture? There is evidence that artisans and craftsmen held a respectable position in Byzantine society, particularly around the twelfth century—such writers as John Tzetzes, Michael Haploucheir, and Theodore Prodromos discuss the “theme of a poor intellectual’s envy of a well-to-do artisan.”35 Did this envy also include the profession of the gardener? Some sources offer information about the gardening profession and its social position. In late antiquity there are implications that a gardener sometimes could gain wealth and reputation, as indicated by an epigram: “To thee, Priapus the gardener, did Potamon, who gained wealth by his calling, dedicate the hoe that dug his thirsty garden.”36 Another epigram tells about a poor gardener who has become rich: “Stephanus was poor and a gardener, but now having got on well and become rich, he has suddenly turned into Philostephanus.”37 Do such references provide enough evidence to ascribe significance to the role of the gardener or more broadly to gardens and horticulture? The difficulties posed by these questions are enormous for the field of Byzantine garden culture. It is easy to demonstrate how difficult it is for scholars of all disciplines to deal with this topic and to find unequivocal answers to these questions. I ended a 1992 article with the following beautiful description by Nicholas Mesarites of the garden landscape around the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople: One can also see deep and fertile soil, rich and soft, easy to dig, richly responding to the desires of husbandmen, equally good for sowing and growing, and well suited to the production of both classes of products, both tall trees with rich fruit, and fruits in abundance; the beauty of these even surpasses the quantity, and the crops are taller than trees themselves are elsewhere. One can see saffron growing in the land about this Church, balsam and lilies, fresh clover and hyacinth, the rose and the oleander and everything of sweet aroma. This is more lovely than the garden of Laertes, than the much-sung happy Arabia. For there is a variety of gardens in it and pleasant aqueducts and a multitude of springs, and houses hidden in trees, a scene of every pleasant view, choruses of musical birds, a moderate breeze, sweet scents of spices.38 I was given this description by a well-known Byzantine art historian, and I quoted it as an argument that in a culture where the aesthetics of beautiful landscapes played such a role, it would be promising and worthwhile to investigate its gardens in more detail. Some time later Antony Littlewood informed me that this was not truly a contemporary description: “The literary descriptions are largely artistic exercises which give very little precise contemporary information. You quote Mesarites’ description of the gardens around the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, which is our most detailed description; but it is taken word for word (with a few omissions) from Libanios’ description of a garden in Antioch. How much, therefore, can we take as factual?”39 The study of Byzantine garden culture is a fascinating and challenging enterprise. It requires the collaboration of scholars from a variety of disciplines interested in Byzantine history and in the history of gardens. The various contributions in this volume should help to stimulate further research and discussion on this topic. Universität Hannover
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