The inspiration for virtually all of RomeGÇÖs famous gardens, the Vatican Gardens first flourished during the Middle Ages and have awed visitors ever since. Yet despite their importance to the history of Western gardens and art, no full-length study of the gardens has previously been published. With the release of The Vatican GardensGÇöthe third in a series co-published with the Vatican that also includes The Sistine Chapel: A New Vision and The Loggia of Raphael: A Vatican Art TreasureGÇöthese important gardens have at last received their full due.Covering the period from the thirteenth century through 1930, when the Vatican became a state, The Vatican Gardens explores the plants, planters, and architectural structures of the gardens in fascinating detail. Here you will learn about such celebrated gardeners as Michele Mercate, who around 1570 introduced the rarest plants of his time to the Vatican, and the great botanist Johannes Faber. The famous Cortile del Belvedere courtyard, designed by Donato Branmante for Pope Julius II and envisioned as a vast outdoor room, is brought to vibrant life through word and image. Discussion of the GardensGÇÖ symbolic significance, agricultural functions, and upkeep by such gardening popes as Leo XIIIGÇöas well as of the gardens at Castel Gandolfo, the pope's four-centuries-old summer residenceGÇöcompletes this authoritative volume.Illustrated throughout with newly commissioned images and plans as well as historic pictures and diagrams, and featuring research thatGÇöamong much elseGÇöestablishes the Vatican Gardens as the oldest botanical garden in Italy, this original volume belongs in the libraries of landscape gardeners, architects, historians, and visitors to Rome.