In the 15th century, the mutual cultural influences between the Valencia-Naples-Florence axis, at the time of Alfonso the Magnanimous and the Medici, gave rise to a garden sensibility – in Italy it was called the architecture of green – that would have its origin in the topiary art of antiquity, and centuries later in the current that reached Italy from Valencia with citrus topiary, a contribution as important as it was unknown, to the Italian Renaissance garden. If these statements sound audacious it is because the confirmation of this theory would elevate Valencian gardening in the middle of the 15th century and the technique of its gardeners, the lligadors d’horts, to one of the roles of obligatory reference in all this process that, for several centuries would mark the peak of gardening in the western world, with dazzling gardens, citrus collections and orangeries in numerous European gardens. Can we affirm that this was so? I leave the answer to each reader to draw his own conclusions and to judge… The case is not yet closed.
The author is a landscape gardener and for years has taught gardening and Master of Landscape Architecture at the Universitat Politècnica de València. Her research activity on historic Valencian gardens has resulted in the publication of several books: La Glorieta y el Parterre (1985), El Jardín de Monforte (1993), El parque de Ribalta (1995), El Jardín Botánico de Valencia: Orígenes (2001), and Desde mi ventana (2014). He develops his professional work as a landscape designer in the team VAM10 Arquitectura y Paisaje, of which he is a member. He has intervened in various private and public gardens, such as the Garden of the Hesperides in Valencia, landscape award of the biennial of COACV 2000-2001; Barbera Park in Villajoyosa; Restoration of the Palmeral de Santa Pola; Central Boulevard of the University Jaume I of Castellón; Garden of the Alquería de Juliá (Casa de la Música, 2019) and lately the Jardí del Temps (2023) at the same university.
