This book looks at the origins of ancient Roman garden design and its Greek influences. It includes the use and design of private domestic gardens as well as those connected to theatres and temples. Gardens connected to mausolea are also included. It shows how rooms were designed to afford the best views of the gardens. Special attention is paid to Roman water gardens, their pools and fountain designs. Nymphaea, garden ornaments, sundials, trellising, topiary and plants are included. The many illustrations are drawn from the author's collections and have been taken over decades of study throughout the Roman empire.
Anthony Beeson is a board member of the Association for Roman Archaeology, a prolific writer of papers on Roman art and architecture, and has lectured on the subject of Roman gardens.
Roman Gardens
Description
Author Description
Anthony Beeson was born in 1948 into a well-established Brighton family. Having worked at the Courtauld Institute of Art Library, he moved to Bristol in 1972 to become Fine Art Librarian, and over the following thirty-seven years developed the Bristol Art Library into one of the finest British public collections of art books. He is an established author and lecturer having had ten volumes published on the history of Bristol, Brighton and Dorset as well as many articles on antiquities and art in academic journals. He is an acknowledged Classical iconographer and an expert on Roman and Greek art and architecture. He is the Hon Archivist of the Association for Roman Archaeology and a member of the Association for the Study and Preservation of Roman Mosaics and has appeared on the television programme Time Team. In 2000 he reassembled the many hundreds of pieces of the ‘lost’ Newton St Loe Orpheus mosaic in the entrance hall of Bristol museum and in 2017 interpreted and produced the official report on the exceptional and internationally famous Roman mosaic of Pegasus and Bellerophon found at Boxford in Berkshire. He is a Trustee of the Roman Baths Foundation.