OrderBackgroundSpecificationsJohn Evelyn - an English Virtuoso |
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John Evelyn - an English Virtuoso
Advisor: Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, Director Studies in Landscape Architecture, Dumbarton Oaks Books from the Dumbarton Oaks collection, Washington, D.C. The Garden Library at Dumbarton Oaks owns a number of seminal works by John Evelyn (1620-1706), the English virtuoso and writer, who was a pivotal figure in seventeenth-century intellectual life in England. Evelyn left an immensely rich literary heritage, which is of great significance for scholars of various disciplines who are interested in, for example, the history of intellectual life, the history of architecture, or garden history. With this project, dozens of his publications are made accessible to a wider audience. John Evelyn John Evelyn, the son of Richard Evelyn, was born at Wotton House in Surrey. During his life, he pursued a broad range of interests, such as writing and garden design. Evelyn travelled widely, and, during the 1640s, he spent several years abroad, in Holland, Italy and France, and returned to England in 1652. Evelyn was one of the first members of the Royal Society, becoming its Secretary in 1672. Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest-trees One of his first and most important publications was Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest-trees, a treatise whose motivation was to maintain the supply of timber for the Royal Navy. It created great public interest and appeared in several revised editions in 1669, 1679, 1706 and 1729. Each edition contains the two appendices Pomona, or an appendix concerning fruit-trees, in relation to cider, and Kalendarium Hortense. Evelyn's Sylva was probably the most influential seventeenth-century book on forestry. Evelyn's diaries Evelyn's diaries, which he wrote over several decades, are of significant historical importance and provide insights into a momentous period in both English and garden history. In the 1650s, Evelyn wrote a comprehensive treatise on all aspects of gardening and garden design, his Elysium Britannicum. Or the Royal Gardens in Three Books. This work was never published in its entirety, although parts of it were published separately. Evelyn did, however, expand and revise it over a forty-year period. In 1993, the institute known as Studies in Landscape Architecture at Dumbarton Oaks held a symposium on John Evelyn's Elysium Britannicum. |
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