The garden as the law in the Renaissance: a nature metaphor in a legal setting

Among the many visual images we use for the law the garden is an outstanding one. The topos of the garden has a wide semantic range: it is the eternal metaphor of life and it is an ethical image indicating the active behavioral rules man has to follow. The myth of the garden arises connected to a structural system put at man’s disposal, however a system which entails limits and limitations. The action of shaping nature is connected with a sort of violence imposed on nature: the garden becomes man’s grand scenario where man challenges God in his ambition to modify and regulate nature. In the case of both garden and law a creation according to certain rules is implied and these rules must be respected unless the garden and the juridical system wither and die. I here explore the relationship between the concept of garden/landscape through which law is conceived and from which it draws meaning