André Le Nôtre

Founder: Minari

In the service of the French monarchy since 1635, garden designer André Le Nôtre began his career as gardener of Gaston d’Orléans, an uncle of Louis XIV. Born into a family of gardeners to the king beginning in the 16th century, he was trained in the Tuileries gardens which he modified between 1666 and 1672, creating the vast perspective of the Champs-Elysées. His work for Fouquet in Vaux-le-Vicomte in 1656-61 brought him glory and fortune. Louis XIV summoned him to Versailles in 1662 when he was working on the gardens of Chantilly for the Grand Condé. Starting from the base of the primitive garden of Louis XIII, Le Nôtre laid out close to the Château two large parterres, the north and south parterres. He remodelled the great east-west axis which he intended to prolong in an endless perspective. While he kept the natural slope of the northern section, the rest was remodelled by human labour. The parks which Le Notre designed at Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles are supreme examples of the French seventeenth century garden design. Le Notre also projected the central axis of the Tuileries, which became the grand axis of Paris running to the Arc de Triomphe and La Defense. The baroque style of garden design, which they brought to a crescendo, became widely influential in Europe - every prince and potentate dreamed of owning a garden which would ´outshine Versailles´.