kitchen gardens inside the city limits. Pietro Crescenzi, a Bolognese lawyer, wrote twelve volumes on the practical aspects of farming in the 13th century which offers a description of medieval gardening practices. From his text, we know that gardens were surrounded with stonewalls, thick hedging, or fencing, and incorporated trellises and arbors. They borrowed their form from the square or rectangular shape of the cloister and included square planting beds. Grass was also first noted in the medieval garden. In the De Vegetabilibus of Albertus Magnus, written around 1260, instructions are given for planting grass plots. Raised banks covered in turf called "turf seats" were constructed to provide seating in the garden. Fruit trees were prevalent and often grafted to produce new varieties of fruit. Gardens included a raised mound or mount to serve as a stage for viewing, and planting beds were customarily elevated on raised platforms. Two works from the late Middle Ages discuss plant cultivation. In the English poem "The Feate of Gardinage" by Jon Gardener and the general household advice given in Le Ménagier de Paris of 1393, a variety of herbs, flowers, fruit trees, and bushes were listed with instructions on their cultivation. The Ménagier provides advice by season on sowing, planting, and grafting. The most sophisticated gardening during the Middle Ages was done at the monasteries. Monks developed horticultural techniques and cultivated herbs, fruits, and vegetables. Using the medicinal herbs they grew, monks treated those suffering inside the monastery and in surrounding communities. During the Middle Ages, gardens were thought to unite the earthly with the divine. The enclosed garden as an allegory for paradise or a "lost Eden" was termed the hortus conclusus. Freighted with religious and spiritual significance, enclosed gardens were often depicted in the visual arts, picturing the Virgin Mary, a fountain, a unicorn, and roses inside an enclosed area. Though Medieval gardens lacked many of the features of the Renaissance gardens that followed them, some of the characteristics of these gardens continue to be incorporated today. The Renaissance The Italian Renaissance inspired a revolution in private gardening. Renaissance private gardens were full of scenes from ancient mythology and other learned allusions. Water during this time was especially symbolic: it was associated with fertility and the abundance of nature. The first public gardens were built by the Spanish Crown in the 16th century, in Europe and the Americas. French Baroque The