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Month: July 2010

The Art of Gardens in Maurice Scève’s Microcosme

 

Maurice Scève (1501?-1564?) is a major French poet of the sixteenth century best known for Délie (1544), a series of decasyllabic dizains dedicated to his beloved lady. He also wrote a most ambitious encyclopaedic poem, Microscosme (1562), embracing the whole creation. This paper analyzes in some detail the twelve lines he devotes to gardens and relates them to the contemporary art of gardens.