The Renaissance Terms Flashcards
Italian for beautiful view; a roofed but open-sided porch or turret structure affording an extensive view; usually located at the rooftop of a dwelling but sometimes an independent tower on an eminence in a landscape or formal garden
Belvedere
Italian for an enclosed parcel of land used for hunting, or park
Barco
A style of art and architecture characterized by extensive or extravagant ornamentation; curved rather than straight lines; classical forms of high renaissance
Baroque
Italian for grove of trees; thricket
Bosco
Small grove of trees
Boschetto
A natural or human-made waterfall; a series of small waterfalls or steeply inclined rapids
Cascade
Style of the Eastern or Greek Orthodox Church
Byzantine
A small, natural, roughly squared, or ovoid, stone large enough to be used for paving; Belgian blocks are rough-cut stones of a more rectangular form about twice the size of common bricks
Cobblestone
The Italian word for an interior courtyard, usually surrounded by a colonnade, or an arcade in a palace or other building
Cortile
A hemispherical roof or dome situated atop a circular or polygonal base and crowning a roof; a tower-like structure eith lantern windows projecting above a roof
Cupola (Latin cupa for “cup”)
A knoblike decorative feature that terminates the top of an architectural pinnacle, gable peak or bannister; typically with foliage motif
Finial
Popular feature in Italian Renaissance gardens, usually enclosed by walls and/or clipped evergreen hedges; setting for musical and dance performances; Villa Madama, Rome
Garden Theater
Italian word for a natural or articial cave built as a shady moist retreat from the heat; stems from the Latin word crypta or crypt, meaning “a cave or cavern…picturesques…an agreeable retreat…an excavation…made to imitate s rocky cave, often adorned with shell-work and serving as a place of…cool retreat”
Grotto
An Italian word describing a small garden set apart from the main garden of a rural Renaissance garden, providing greater privacy than available in the larger, more crowded areas of the villa during times of festive social gatherings
Giardino segreto (Secret Garden)
A French word meaning a surface encrusted with shells, pebbles, and coarse, rough-hewn rocks; origin of the word rococo
Rocaille
French word for a garden structure, hothouse, or sheltered place within a garden for the protected growth of citrus trees in cooler climates; popular in England (17th to 19th centuries)
Orangerie or Orangery
Named for the Greek god of travelers; related to the worship of stone; the bust or legless torso of a male figure emerging from square pedestal; sometimes used as a pilaster or monument in ancient Greece and as milestones of one’s property to demarcate ownership in Rome.
Herm or Herma
Italian word for palace in an urban setting
Palazzo
A pleasure garden created during the earliest Italian Renaissance stage of villa garden development for purposes of gathering together people to enjoy the pleasure of the garden and to conduct conversations; an adaptation of the earlier Greco-Roman academy or aristocratic villa setting of Imperial Roman times
Philosopher’s Garden
French garden feature with water fountains and sculpture as the major design elements; typically open and spacious
Parterre d’eau
The Italian word for the portion of the villa that functions as a farm
Podere
A method of forming stonework with roughened surfaces and recessed joints, employed principally in Renaissance buildings to give an appearance of great strength
Rustication
Italian for sacred grove; often an underdeveloped or wild area set in contrast to a more formally designed garden; derived from the ancient tradition of the Greek sacred grove, where one could experience natural surroundings rather than human-made surroundings
Sacro bosco
From the Italian word for “to scratch”; a process of incising or scratching the outer surface of a mural or clay vessel to produce design
Sgraffito
To scribble on a wall or public surface
Graffito or graffiti
Italian for baked earth; hard-baked clay of reddish or yellowish-brown color used for sculpture, flower pots and as a building material; may be glazed or painted; (or) the expression for the color of hard-baked clay
Terra cotta
In the Renaissance Italy, a country house surrounded by formal gardens
Villa
A confined segment of a view usually toward a terminal or dominant element or feature; may be natural or completely human-made view
Vista
A popular feature in the Italian Renaissance gardens, where water in pools and fountains was the major design feature; usually enclosed by walls and/or clipped evergreen hedges
Water Theater (i.e. Villa Gamberaia)
During the Renaissance, it was the central feature of the Boboli Gardens in Florence (1550) and the Piazza di Siena
Hippodrome
French term; a narrow passageway between walls, high fences, or tall, closely set vegetation
Allee (Alley)
A narrow way framed by closely planted trees or shrubs of a height at least twice the width of the way
Open Allee
A series of balusters, bannisters, or small pillars that support a handrail or stair rail
Balustrade
A small fortified town laid our during middle ages on a gridiron plan by the English in the parts of France which they occupied
Bastide
A French term originally applied to the broad way or parade within the rampart of a fortified town; demolished in the 19th century; replaced by wide streets; applied to any broad way or thoroughfare, particularly if it is bordered by important structures
Boulevard
In France, a grove of trees; thricket; more ordered, with geometric paths and clearings, or cabinet de verdure compared to the English
Bosquet
French expression for embroidery on the ground; decorative arrangement of ornamental flowers beds with intervals of grave, or turf
Broderie par terre or Parterre de broderie
A French term for a clearing in a grove of trees in a formal garden; serves as an outdoor amusement area
Cabinet or sometimes, Cabinet de verdure
French word for a castle or a fine country estate, including the residence and grounds
Chateau
French expression for a clear view; used to refer to prescribed vantage points in a garden, often as a window-like clearing with a grillwork screen
Clairevoie or Clair voyee
A French term that literally means “bottom of a bag,” for a short dead-end street; used widely in suburban residential layouts today; minimize the danger, noise, and nuisance of through traffic
Cul-de-sac
A tree, shrub, or vine trained to grow flat against a wall or on a trellis
Espalier
The front face of a building; also, the other sides when they are emphasized architecturally
Facade
A roof drainage spout typically carved into a grotesque figure and extending out from the roof edge to project rainwater away from the building walls
Gargoyle
French for “hamlet”; an artificial grouping of peasant buildings to be seen in, or from, a landscape garden in England and elsewhere; Petit Trianon at Versailles
Hameau
French for “garden”
Jardin
French for “jet of water”; an upright spray or fountain
Jet d’eau
French for great age, century, or generation during which King Louis XIV (1638-1715) reigned as the Sun King from 1643-1715
Le Grand Siecle
The French expression for the middle ages
Le Moyen Age
French for Sun King; pertaining to King Louis XIV, the longest if any French monarch; built the palace and gardens of Versailles into the most grandiose royal residence of all time
Le Roi Soleil
A roof with a steep, almost vertical, lower slope and flatter upper portion; named after French architect; similar to gambrel roof except for its sloping ends
Mansard Roof (F. Mansard, 1598-1666)
A recess in a wall, hollowed like a shell, for a statue or ornament; (or) the particular role or job of an individual species or organism in its community and its environment, including its position in the food cycle
Niche
French expression for “goosefoot”; used in reference ro the radiating avenues in a garden which were popular during the French Baroque and English High Renaissance
Patte d’oie
A French word for an exterior set of steps up a sloped terrace; ramped steps
Perron
The French word for an open space or square in an urban setting
Place
A garden created for pleasure; enclosed within the walls or ramparts of a castle
Pleasance
A low continuous platform or stylobate on which a temple is built; (or) a raised platform surrounding the arena of an ancient amphitheatre
Podium
A tree whose main branches are cut back to near the trunk to form a crown of many small dense branched; common practice in the European cities
Pollard
A French word for vegetable garden or kitchen garden; from a French word meaning “soup”
Potager (Potage)
A composition, usually circular, which is comprised of radii, rays, or lines extending outward from a center point; popular motif used in Baroque compositions; French rond point is an example
Radial
Pertaining yo land on either side of non-navigable stream; also, a right associated with stream side property, especially related to the use and restriction of use of the water flowing in such a stream; also, a kind of vegetable that which grows adjacent to a stream
Riparian
French for the point of intersection of a number of axial paths or allees; originally, an open space in forest parks where ladies and courtiers of the French Renaissance chateaux could sit and watch the comings and goings of the hunt; later employed by Hausmann in Paris for traffic circles at the intersection of streets; in England, a roundabout
Rond Point
A French term for a square or rectangular manicured grass area; “green carpet”
Tapis Vert
French term for a lattice for vines or other plants
Treillage (Trellis)
A form of illusionistic painting that attempts to represent an object as though it existed in 3D ; literally, “eye-fooling”; also, employed in architecture or landscape architecture by converging and/or diminishing the size of elements in the composition to suggest exaggerated depth
Trompe L’oeil
A French word for a screen or visual baffle
Voile
In Elizabethan gardens, a raised place, where one could climb “to view a fair prospect”; usually, at the top, there was an arbor or sitting place
Mount
In England, a grove of trees; a thicket that furnishes a shaded place away from the formal geometric portion of a garden
Bosket
In Tudor England, a figure, often in the form of a heraldic beast, of carved wood, stone, or lead, placed at a post in the garden; used as an accent or focal point; often painted with bright colors
Beeste
