Republican Rome had disapproved of luxuries. Until the last century of the Republic, Roman gardens had been utilitarian. The first public garden in Rome was constructed in 55 BC and the Republic ended in 27 BC. Alexander the Great had conquered the Persian Empire in 334 BC; the Persians had ruled most of the Near East, including Egypt. The Persians were a garden loving people and they had a highly developed tradition of formal gardens. Under the new Greek rulers, an international culture developed in which Greek culture hybridized with the cultures of the conquered, we call this hybrid culture Hellenistic. When Rome conquered the Hellenistic world, it absorbed this culture. It was the Hellenistic formal garden which Imperial Rome accepted and made it1s own. Many Greek homes featured paved courtyards surrounded by a covered walk supported by columns, this walk was called a peristyle. The Romans transformed these courtyards into formal gardens, these peristyle gardens were the typical gardens of Imperial Rome. The cloisters of Medieval monasteries are directly descended from these Roman peristyle gardens.
During the early Middle Ages, European gardens were primarily utilitarian. The tradition of formal gardens did survive in monasteries, but in a simplified form. They were slightly decorative gardens of fruits, herbs and vegetables. It is important to remember that while the tradition of ornamental gardens barely survived in Europe, much of the Near East was on a high cultural level. The gardens of Renaissance Italy were inspired by the ruins of Imperial Rome, but they were also inspired by the magnificent gardens which Crusaders had seen in the Near East.
By the sixteenth century, the formal Italian garden was the dominant style in Europe, but there were local variations. Italian gardens tended to be created on terraces carved into hillsides. The land in Northern France and the Netherlands is mainly flat with a high water table, so canals were needed to drain the land. The main difference between sixteenth century French and Dutch gardens is that the Dutch gardens tended to be on a smaller scale than French gardens. And the French gardens were more likely to be surrounded by forests.
By the middle of seventeenth century the French formal garden was becoming the dominant style in Europe, this style is mainly a creation of Andre le Notre, and since it was the last style of formal gardening to be developed in Europe, it has had a huge influence on people1s ideas about formal gardens. For example, until the seventeenth century, most formal gardens were not perfectly symmetrical, the various parts the garden were usually symmetrical, but it was rare for one half of the garden to mirror the other half. Before the seventeenth century, European gardens were usually a collection of small formal garden "rooms". These rooms were placed next to each other without much concern for the symmetry of the entire garden.
