The Landscape Garden and Freemasonry

James Stevens Curl

Curl probes some of the ideas current during the European Enlightenment which have since become submerged or forgotten, and shows that certain gardens were conceived as mnemonics of notions of nationalism and enlightened ideals (especially where national aspirations were either wishful thinking or endangered). Research was carried out in several European countries and in archives only recently accessible, thus treading ground not normally frequented in Anglophone circles.

The lecture questions dogmatic assumptions made about connections between landscape gardens and Freemasonry, and refers to certain Central European ‘Gardens of Allusion’, exploring much that will be unfamiliar territory.