Crimson & Lemon & Green

Crimson is the rose — the deep vivid cool-red of the 'Rosa gallica officinalis' (the Apothecary's Rose or Red Rose of Lancaster), the most important rose in the Italian Renaissance garden tradition. The specific deep crimson rose was the most formally significant cultivated flower of the Italian Renaissance — grown in the most formally elaborate garden designs (Villa d'Este, Tivoli; Villa Lante, Bagnaia; Boboli Gardens, Florence) as the primary warm accent in the knot garden (parterre) and the giardino segreto (secret garden). The pomegranate (Punica granatum) — the second most important crimson element of the Italian Renaissance garden — provides the deep vivid red of its flowers (the pomegranate flower, 'melagrana') in June-July against the dark green foliage, creating the most symbolically charged warm-on-dark-cool contrast in the Renaissance garden iconography. Lemon is the citrus — the vivid pale lemon-yellow of the Citrus limon 'Amalfitano' and the Citrus medica (cedro — the large Amalfitan citron), grown in the ornamental terracotta pots that are the most distinctive mobile element of the Italian formal garden. The tradition of growing large citrus trees in terracotta pots (allowing them to be moved indoors in winter — the limonaia, a dedicated winter shelter for potted citrus, is a feature of every significant Italian Renaissance garden) dates to at least the 13th century. The specific vivid pale lemon-yellow of the mature lemon fruit, present on the tree simultaneously with the white-pink flowers (citrus trees flower and fruit simultaneously) and the dark green foliage, creates the most striking warm-cool-warm color contrast in the natural garden. Green is the cypress allée — the vivid mid-green of the Italian cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), the most architecturally significant tree in the Italian formal garden. The Italian cypress — a narrow, columnar evergreen that grows 20-30 meters tall but only 1-2 meters wide — is used in the Italian garden as a formal vertical architectural element, creating walls and allées (formal avenues lined on both sides with evenly spaced trees) that define the spatial structure of the most elaborate Italian formal gardens. The specific vivid mid-green of the cypress foliage (neither the blue-green of the Colorado blue spruce nor the yellow-green of the taxus yew, but the specific vivid true-green of Cupressus sempervirens) is the most characteristic color of the Italian landscape from Tuscany to Naples.