{{Short description|Enclosed garden; attribute of the Virgin Mary}} {{italic title}} [[File:Martin_Schongauer_Madonna_in_Rose_Garden.jpg|thumb|[[Martin Schongauer]], ''[[Madonna of the Rose Bower (Schongauer)|Madonna of the Rose Bower]]'', 1473]] '''''Hortus conclusus''''' is a [[Latin]] term, meaning literally "enclosed garden". Both words in ''hortus conclusus'' refer linguistically to enclosure.<ref>Clifford, ''A History of Garden design'', (New York:Praeger) 1963:17.</ref> It describes a type of garden that was enclosed as a practical concern, a major theme in the [[history of gardening]], as [[walled garden]]s used to be more commonplace.<ref>Rob Aben and Saskia de Wit, ''The Enclosed Garden: History and Development of the Hortus Conclusus and its Re-Introduction into the Present-Day Urban Landscape'' (Rotterdam) 1999. A typological catalogue of design features and a design manual.</ref> The [[garden room]] is a similar feature, usually less fully enclosed.
Having roots in the ''[[Song of Songs]]'' in the Hebrew scriptures, the term ''hortus conclusus'' has importantly been applied as an [[emblem|emblematic attribute]] and a title of the [[Virgin Mary]] in [[Medieval]] and [[Renaissance]] poetry<ref>Stanley Stewart, ''The Enclosed Garden: The Tradition and Image in Seventeenth-Century Poetry'' (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press) 1966, discussed late sixteenth and seventeenth-century poetry in English; its four first chapters trace the ''hortus conclusus'' theme in European literatures and the visual arts.</ref> and art, first appearing in paintings and manuscript illuminations about 1330.<ref>Michelle P. Brown, "The World of the Luttrell Psalter" British Library 2006,</ref><ref>Brian E. Daley, "The 'Closed Garden'and the 'Sealed Fountain': Song of Songs 4:12 in the Late Medieval Iconography of Mary", Elizabeth B. Macdougall, editor, ''Medieval Gardens'', Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium '''9''') 1986, traced the sudden development about 1400 of painted images of the Virgin Mary in a ''hortus conclusus''.</ref>
==The Virgin Mary as ''hortus conclusus''== [[Image:Fra Angelico 043.jpg|thumb|left|''[[The Annunciation]]'' - [[Convent of San Marco]], [[Florence]]]]
The term ''hortus conclusus'' is derived from the [[Vulgate]] Bible's ''[[Canticle of Canticles]]'' (also called the ''Song of Songs'' or ''Song of Solomon'') 4:12, in Latin: "''Hortus conclusus soror mea, sponsa, hortus conclusus, fons signatus''" ("A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up.")<ref>[http://193.8.230.138/etexts/www/Bible/Song_of_Solomon.html The whole text] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110529140849/http://193.8.230.138/etexts/www/Bible/Song_of_Solomon.html |date=2011-05-29 }}</ref> This provided the shared linguistic culture of Christendom, expressed in [[homily|homilies]] expounding the ''Song of Songs'' as [[allegory]] where the image of King [[Solomon]]'s nuptial song to his bride was reinterpreted as the love and union between Christ and the Church, the mystical marriage with the Church as the [[Bride of Christ]]. [[File:15th-century unknown painters - Madonna on a Crescent Moon in Hortus Conclusus - WGA23736.jpg|thumb|180px|The ''[[Madonna on a Crescent Moon in Hortus Conclusus]]'' by an [[anonymity|anonymous]] painter|alt=]] The verse "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee" (4.7) from the ''Song'' was also regarded as a scriptural confirmation of the developing and still controversial doctrine of Mary's [[Immaculate Conception]] – being born without [[Original Sin]] ("''macula''" is Latin for spot).
[[Christianity|Christian]] tradition states that [[Jesus Christ]] was conceived to Mary [[Virgin birth of Jesus|miraculously]] and without disrupting her virginity by the [[Holy Spirit]], the third person of the [[Holy Trinity]]. As such, Mary in late medieval and Renaissance art, illustrating the long-held doctrine of the [[perpetual virginity of Mary]], as well as the Immaculate Conception, was shown in or near a walled garden or yard. This was a representation of her "closed off" womb, which was to remain untouched, and also of her being protected, as by a wall, from sin. In the [[Grimani Breviary]], scrolling labels identify the emblematic objects betokening the Immaculate Conception: the enclosed garden (''hortus conclusus''), the tall cedar (''cedrus exalta''), the well of living waters (''puteus aquarum viventium''), the olive tree (''oliva speciosa''), the fountain in the garden (''fons hortorum''), the rosebush (''plantatio rosae'').<ref>Timothy Husband, reporting the exhibition and its catalogue in ''The Burlington Magazine'', '''125''', No. 967 (October 1983:643).</ref> Not all actual medieval ''horti conclusi'' even strove to include all these details, the olive tree in particular being insufficiently hardy for northern European gardens.
The enclosed garden is recognizable in [[Fra Angelico]]'s ''Annunciation'' (illustration at above left), dating from 1430-32.
Two pilgrimage sites are dedicated to Mary of the Enclosed Garden in the [[Netherlands|Dutch]]-[[Flanders|Flemish]] cultural area. One is the statue at the hermitage-chapel in [[Warfhuizen]]: "[[Sorrowful Mother of Warfhuizen|Our Lady of the Enclosed Garden]]". The second, ''Onze Lieve Vrouw van Tuine'' (literally "Our Lady of the Garden"), is venerated at the cathedral of [[Ypres]].
==Actual gardens== All gardens are by definition enclosed or bounded spaces, but the enclosure may be somewhat open and consist only of columns, low hedges or fences. An actual [[walled garden]], literally surrounded by a wall, is a subset of gardens. The meaning of ''hortus conclusus'' suggests a more private style of garden. [[Image:Photo Château-de-Coucy jardin 01.jpg|thumb|right|Medieval-style garden from [[Coucy-le-Château-Auffrique|Coucy]], France|alt=]]
In the [[history of gardens]] the High Medieval ''hortus conclusus'' typically had a well or fountain at the center, bearing its usual symbolic freight (see "[[Fountain of Life]]") in addition to its practical uses.{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}} The convention of four paths that divided the square enclosure into quadrants was so strong that the pattern was employed even where the paths led nowhere. All medieval gardens were enclosed, protecting the private precinct from public intrusion, whether by folk or by stray animals. The enclosure might be as simple as [[Wattle-and-daub|woven wattle]] fencing or of stout or decorative masonry; or it might be enclosed by [[Trellis (architecture)|trellis]]work tunneled pathways in a secular garden or by an arcaded [[cloister]], for communication or meditative pacing.
The origin of the [[cloister]] is in the Roman colonnaded [[peristyle]], as garden histories note.{{Citation needed|date=April 2025|reason=which "garden histories"?}} The ruined and overgrown [[Roman villa]]s that were so often remade as the site of [[Benedictine monastery|Benedictine monasteries]] had lost their planted garden features with the first decades of abandonment: "gardening, more than architecture, more than painting, more than music, and far more than literature, is an ephemeral art; its masterpieces disappear, leaving little trace."<ref>Clifford 1963, ''eo. loc.''.</ref> [[Georgina Masson]] observed: "When, in 1070, the [[Montecassino|abbey of Cassino]] was rebuilt,<ref>The site was that of a Roman imperial villa, as was the site of Benedict's monastery at [[Subiaco, Italy|Subiaco]], occupying Nero's former villa.</ref> the garden was described as 'a paradise in the Roman fashion'." But it may have been merely "the aura of the great classical tradition" alone that had survived.<ref>Masson, ''Italian Gardens'' (New York: Abrams) 1961:46.</ref> The ninth-century idealised [[plan of Saint Gall]] (illustration) shows an arcaded cloister with a central well and cross-paths from the centers of each range of arcading. But when a consciously patterned garden was revived for the medieval cloister, the patterning came through [[Kingdom of Sicily|Norman Sicily]] and its hybrid culture that adapted many Islamic elements, in this case the enclosed North African courtyard gardens, ultimately based on the [[Persian garden]] tradition.{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}} [[File:Meister des Frankfurter Paradiesgärtleins 001.jpg|thumb|left|''Hortus conclusus'' depicted by the [[Upper Rhenish Master]]|alt=]]
The practical enclosed garden was laid out in the treatise by [[Pietro Crescenzi]] of Bologna, ''Liber ruralium commodorum'', a work that was often copied, as the many surviving manuscripts of its text attest, and often printed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Late medieval paintings and [[Illuminated manuscript|illuminations in manuscripts]] such as for ''[[The Romance of the Rose]] –'' where the garden in the text is largely allegorical – often show a turfed bank for a seat as a feature of the ''hortus conclusus''. Only in the fifteenth century, at first in Italy, did some European gardens begin to look outward.{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}}
Sitting, walking and playing music were the activities most often portrayed in the numerous fifteenth-century paintings and illuminated manuscripts, where strenuous activities were inappropriate. In Rome, a late fifteenth-century [[cloister]] at San Giovanni dei Genovesi was constructed for the use of the Genoese ''[[Nation|natio]]'', an ''Ospitium Genoensium'', as a plaque still proclaims, which provided shelter in cubicles off its vaulted encircling arcades, and a meeting place and shelter reuniting those from the distant home city.<ref>Wolfgang Lotz, "Bramante and the Quattrocento Cloister" ''Gesta'' '''12'''.1/2 (1973):111-121) p. 113.</ref> [[Image:Kölner Maler um 1430 001.jpg|thumb|''Virgin and Child with saints and donor family'', Cologne, c. 1430]]
Somewhat earlier, Pietro Barbo, who became [[Pope Paul II]] in 1464, began the construction of a ''hortus conclusus'', the Palazzetto del Giardino di San Marco, attached to the Venetian Cardinals' Roman seat, the Palazzo Venezia.<ref>It was dismantled and re-erected in 1910 to make space for [[Piazza Venezia]].</ref> It served as Paul's private garden during his papacy; inscriptions stress its secular functions as ''sublimes moenibus hortos...ut relevare animum, durasque repellere curas'', a garden of sublime delights, a retreat from cares, and praise it in classicising terms as the home of the [[dryad]]s, suggesting that there was a central grove of trees, and mentioning its snowy-white stuccoed porticoes. An eighteenth-century engraving shows a tree-covered central mount, which has been recreated in the modern replanting, with box-bordered cross and saltire gravelled paths.<ref>''Hinc hortos dryadumque domos et amena vireta/ Porticibus circum et niveis lustrata columnis''Lotz 1973 ''eo. loc.'' and figs 10 and 11.</ref>
The [[Farnese Gardens]] (''Orti Farnesiani sul Palatino –'' or "Gardens of Farnese upon the Palatine") were created by [[Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola|Vignola]] in 1550 on Rome's northern [[Palatine Hill]], for Cardinal [[Alessandro Farnese (cardinal)|Alessandro Farnese]] (1520–89). These become the first private [[botanical garden]]s in Europe (the first botanical gardens of any kind in Europe being started by Italian universities in the mid-16th century, only a short time before). Alessandro called his summer home at the site ''Horti Farnesiani'', probably in reference to the ''hortus conclusus.'' These gardens were also designed in the Roman peristylium style with a central fountain.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Roman Forum|url=http://www.theromanforum.com/?p=160|access-date=2020-08-18|website=www.theromanforum.com}}</ref>
==In art== [[Image:Unicorn annunciation.jpg|thumb|[[Hunt of the Unicorn]] Annunciation (ca. 1500) from a Netherlandish Book of Hours. In this example [[Gideon]]'s fleece is worked in as well, and the altar at the rear has [[Aaron's rod]] that miraculously flowered in the centre. Both are [[Typology (theology)|types]] for the Annunciation.<ref>Schiller, 54; [[:File:Annunciation with mystic hunt - Colmar (cropped).jpg|similar image on panel]]</ref>]]
The ''hortus conclusus'' was one of a number of depictions of the Virgin in the late Middle Ages developed to be more informal and intimate than the traditional hieratic enthroned Virgin adopted from Byzantine icons, or the [[Coronation of the Virgin]].{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}} The subject began as a specific metaphor for the [[Annunciation]],<ref>Schiller, pp 52-55</ref> but tended to develop into a relaxed ''[[sacra conversatione]]'', with several figures beside the Virgin seated, and less specific associations. Germany and the Netherlands in the 15th century saw the peak popularity of this depiction of the Virgin, usually with Child, and very often a crowd of angels, saints and donors, in the garden; the garden by itself, to represent the Virgin, was much rarer. Often walls or [[Trellis (agriculture)|trellises]] close off the sides and rear, or it may be shown as open, except for raised banks, to a landscape beyond. Sometimes, as with a [[Gerard David]]'s ''The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor'' (below) the garden is very fully depicted; at other times, as in [[engraving]]s by [[Martin Schongauer]], only a wattle fence and a few sprigs of grass serve to identify the theme. Italian painters typically also keep plants to a minimum, and do not have grass benches. A sub-variety of the theme was the German "Madonna of the Roses", sometimes attempted in sculptured [[altarpiece]]s. The image was rare in Orthodox [[icon]]s, but there are at least some Russian examples.<ref>[http://www.christusrex.org/www2/art/images/icon18.jpg Russian example], [[Tretyakov Gallery]] Moscow.</ref>
One type of depiction, not usually compatible with correct perspective, concentrates on showing the whole wall and several garden structures or features that symbolize the mystery of Christ's conception, mostly derived from the ''Song of Songs'' or other Biblical passages as interpreted by theological writers. These may include one or more temple or church-like buildings, an [[Ivory Tower]] (SS 7.4), an open-air altar with [[Aaron's rod]] flowering, surrounded by the bare rods of the other tribes, a gatehouse "tower of David, hung with shields" (SS 7.4),<ref>"Thy neck is like the tower of David built for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men."</ref> with the gate closed, the [[Ark of the Covenant]], a well (often covered), a fountain, and the morning sun above (SS 6.10).<ref>"Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?"</ref> This type of depiction usually shows the Annunciation, although sometimes the child Jesus is held by Mary.<ref>Schiller, pp 53-54</ref>
A rather rare, late 15th century, variant of this depiction was to combine the Annunciation in the ''hortus conclusus'' with the ''[[Hunt of the Unicorn]]'' and ''Virgin and [[Unicorn]]'', so popular in secular art. The unicorn already functioned as a symbol of the [[Incarnation of Christ|Incarnation]] and whether this meaning is intended in many ''prima facie'' secular depictions can be a difficult matter of scholarly interpretation. There is no such ambiguity in the scenes where the archangel [[Gabriel]] is shown blowing a horn, as hounds chase the unicorn into the Virgin's arms, and a little Christ Child descends on rays of light from God the Father. The [[Council of Trent]] finally banned this somewhat over-elaborated, if charming, depiction,<ref>[[Gertrud Schiller]], ''Iconography of Christian Art, Vol. I'',1971 (English trans from German), Lund Humphries, London, pp. 52-4 & figs 126-9, {{ISBN|0-85331-270-2}}, [http://www.sagen.at/fotos/data/603/medium/Maria_Gail_HortusConclusus_Detail.jpg another image]</ref> partly on the grounds of realism, as no one now believed the unicorn to be a real animal. In the 16th century the subject of the ''hortus conclusus'' drifts into the open air ''[[Sacra Conversazione]]'' and the Madonnas in a landscape of [[Giovanni Bellini]], [[Albrecht Dürer]] and [[Raphael]], where it is hard to say if an allusion is intended.
An exhibition of later medieval visual representations of ''hortus inclusus'' was mounted at [[Dumbarton Oaks]], Washington DC;<ref>Exhibition catalogue, Marilyn Stokstad and Jerry Stannard, ''Gardens of the Middle Ages'', Dumbarton Oaks and Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas (University of Kansas) 1983.</ref> the exhibition drew a distinction between "garden representations as thematic reinforcements and those that seemingly treat the garden as a subject in itself"; in reviewing it Timothy Husband, warned against uncritical interpretation of the refined detail in manuscript illuminations' "seemingly objective representation". "Late medieval garden imagery, by subjugating direct observation to symbolic or allegorical intention, reflects more a state of mind than reality,"<ref>Husband 1983:644.</ref> if a disjunct can be detected where the objects of the world shimmered with pregnant allegorical meaning. South Netherlandish illuminations and painting appear to document the "turf benches, fountains, raised beds, 'estrade'<ref>An ''estrade'' tree was pruned into a series of diminishing horizontal tiers like a sweetmeat stand, the French ''estrade'' coming from Spanish ''estrado'', denoting the carpeted and raised section of a room (cf ''OED'', ''s.v.'' "estrade", "estrado").</ref> trees, potted plants, walkways, enclosing walls, [[Trellis (agriculture)|trellises]], [[Acacia|wattle]] fences and [[Pergola|bowers]]" familiar to contemporary viewers, but assembled into an illusion of reality.<ref>Husband, ''eo. loc.''.</ref>
<gallery> Image:Gentile da Fabriano, Thronende Maria und Kind, Hl. Nikolaus, Hl. Katharina und Stifter, 1400-10, Gemäldegalerie Berlin.jpg|[[Gentile da Fabriano]] Image:Fra Angelico — Annalena Altarpiece.jpg|[[Fra Angelico]] Image:Gerard David - The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor - Google Art Project.jpg|[[Gerard David]] File:Madonna w ogrodzie Mistycznym.jpg|Style of [[Dieric Bouts]] File:Museo di castelvecchio, michelino di besozzo, madonna del roseto.JPG|Italian miniature, c. 1435 File:Vierge a la rose dans un jardin clos.jpg|Early [[woodcut]], c. 1460, hand-coloured Image:Stefan_Lochner_Madonna_im_Rosenhag.jpg|[[Stefan Lochner]] Image:Bartolomé Bermejo - Retablo della vergine di Montserrat.jpg|[[Bartolomé Bermejo]], ''Virgen de Montserrat'' altarpiece, 1485 Image:Triptych of the Virgin and Child with Saints.jpg|Cologne, ca. 1520 file:Juan de Juanes - Inmaculada Concepción.JPG|[[Juan de Juanes]], after 1530 File:Virgin-saints-garden-1418.jpg|Woodcut dated 1418, but probably 1450s </gallery>
==Modern cultural references== [[File:Peter Zumthor Serpentine Pavilion 2011.jpg|thumb|Serpentine Pavilion, Hyde Park, [[Peter Zumthor]].]]
The concept for the 2011 [[Serpentine Galleries#Pavilions|Serpentine Gallery Pavilion]] was the ''hortus conclusus'', a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. Designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor and with a garden created by [[Piet Oudolf]], the Pavilion was a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2011 by Peter Zumthor|url=https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/serpentine-gallery-pavilion-2011-peter-zumthor/|access-date=2020-08-18|website=Serpentine Galleries|language=en-GB}}</ref>
==See also== *[[Artas, Bethlehem]], location of the [[Catholic]] Convent of the Hortus Conclusus *[[Gaston Bachelard]] *[[Locus amoenus]] *[[Topophilia]] *[[Renaissance garden]]
==References== {{reflist|2}} Martínez, Adriana: Espacio evocado, espacio representado: el tópico bíblico del Paraíso en el Medioevo. Durango-Muñetón, Sebastián: Apuntes sobre el hortus conclusus. Durango-Muñetón, Sebastián: El jardín cerrado en Bernardo de Claraval.
==Further reading== * {{cite book|last1=D'Ancona|first1=Mirella Levi|title=Garden of the Renaissance: Botanical Symbolism in Italian Painting|date=1977|publisher=Casa Editrice Leo S.Olschki|location=Firenze|isbn=9788822217899}}
==External links== * {{commonscatinline}} * [http://www.wga.hu/tours/gothic/devotion.html#hortus Hortus conclusus] as one of a number of [http://www.wga.hu/tours/gothic/devotion.html Devotional Images] * [http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/m/master/zunk_ge/zunk_ge3/garden_e.html The Garden of Eden], a hortus conclusus by the Master of the Upper Rhineland * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070825190646/http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue1/article2.htm Early Delights], excellent piece by Jemima Montagu on the symbolism of the garden {{authority control}}
[[Category:Annunciation in Christian art]] [[Category:Biblical phrases]] [[Category:Garden design history]] [[Category:Latin religious words and phrases]] [[Category:Mariology]] [[Category:Medieval art]] [[Category:Song of Songs]] [[Category:Titles of Mary, mother of Jesus]] [[Category:Types of garden]] [[Category:Virgin Mary in art]]