The Wildest Place on Earth: Italian Gardens and the Invention of Wilderness - Softcover

Mitchell, John Hanson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1611687209 ISBN 13: 9781611687200

Publisher: University Press of New England, 2015

Synopsis

This is the ironic story of how Italian Renaissance and Baroque gardens encouraged the preservation of the American wilderness and ultimately fostered the creation of the world’s first national park system. Told via Mitchell’s sometimes disastrous and humorous travels―from the gardens of southern Italy up through Tuscany and the lake island gardens―the book is filled with history, folklore, myths, and legends of Western Europe, including a detailed history of the labyrinth, a common element in Renaissance gardens. In his attempt to understand the Italian garden in detail, Mitchell set out to create one on his own property―with a labyrinth.

About this title

Review

In the hearts of the elaborate Renaissance gardens of Italy, writes essayist John Hanson Mitchell, lie small patches of untended ground, overgrown with moss and tangled undergrowth, called boscos. These wild patches are there to remind us of the untamed country that lies far outside the city walls, the abode of wild animals, where wilderness experiences are to be had for the adventurous traveler. A veteran of many such experiences, Mitchell counsels that wilderness does not teach us much about how to live in and with nature; such lessons lie closer to home, for, he writes, wildness "lurks in the wilder corners of suburbia, or even in cities, and exists as potential even in some of the most barren, devastated environments."

In The Wildest Place on Earth, Mitchell travels to Mediterranean gardens, writing of their meaning and history. Heeding his own counsel, he also sticks close to his own home, restoring a hardscrabble New England farm called Scratch Flat, building mazes and trellises, and exploring the lessons that making a garden offer a student of the natural world. Though his efforts at environmental philosophizing tend to be underdone, his dedication to gardening is evident, and his account of that hard but rewarding work may inspire like-minded readers to take up their trowels. --Gregory McNamee

About the Author

JOHN HANSON MITCHELL is the author of five books based on a single square mile known as Scratch Flat, as well as two travel books and the biography of the early African American landscape photographer Robert A. Gilbert. A winner of the John Burroughs Award for his nature essays, Mitchell was founder and editor of Sanctuary magazine, published by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. In 2000 he won the New England Book Award in nonfiction for his Scratch Flat series. He lives in Littleton, Massachusetts, the location of Scratch Flat.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of New England
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1611687209
• ISBN 13: 9781611687200
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216