« Avec vue sur jardin » : vivre entre nature et paysage dans l’architecture domestique, de Cicéron à Sidoine Apollinaire

Abstract

Evading an exact definition, the feeling of nature remains a difficult concept to be grasped in Roman thought, although one feels it today going through not only intellectual creation but also the architectural genius, from Cicero to Pliny the Younger and from Libanios to Sidonius Apollinaris. By means of a study combining descriptive texts, circumstance poetry and letters, this article focuses on the close link between the domus, the pleasure villas and the natural landscapes that are contemplated. Countryside and lakes, coast and mountain ranges: the Romans have created a visual symbiosis with the surrounding nature, from the belvederes of their residences. This very diverse experimentation, ranging from admiration to a feeling of anxiety, is particularly evident through the filter of gardens, where the scheduled and dominated plant element is recomposed with the view from reception rooms, cubicula, porticos and belvederes. Frescoes or mosaics also sometimes magnify the environment of the represented areas. Through the multiple panoramas of the Empire, it is a way of staging the spectacle of nature that characterizes the architecture of Roman leisure.

Keywords

• nature
• spectacle
• view
• garden
• hortus
• viridarium