TY - JOUR
AU - Sturdy, David J.
AB - REVIEWS OF BOOKS 241 The Sun King’s Garden: Louis XIV, André Le Nôtre and the Creation of the Gardens of Versailles . By Ian Thompson . London : Bloomsbury Publishing Plc . 2006 . xiii + 370 pp. £30 . ISBN 0 7475 7648 3 . The experience of reading this book can be likened to inspecting the gardens of Versailles. The gardens are arranged around major and minor axes, from which project smaller pathways, some leading to wooded grottoes or intimate hideaways which seem remote from the main allées . Likewise, Ian Thompson concentrates on certain major themes which are transected by subsidiary subjects and digressions, some of which are only tenuously linked to the central arguments. The author is an expert in landscape architecture and it is in this domain that he writes the most instructive and convincing sections of the book: those dealing with the technicalities of planning and designing the gardens of Versailles, selecting and acquiring the flowers, bushes and trees and constructing the immense engines and aqueducts which supplied water to the foun- tains, lakes and canals. His attempts to associate the construction of the palace and gardens with broader aspects of the reign 
TI - The Sun King's Garden: Louis XIV, Andr Le Ntre and the Creation of the Gardens of Versailles
JF - French History
DO - 10.1093/fh/crm011
DA - 0001-01-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/the-sun-king-s-garden-louis-xiv-andr-le-ntre-and-the-creation-of-the-UTjwClAbR1
SP - 241
EP - 243
VL - 21
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -