From the most remote Antiquity, the gardens have been associated with the idea of paradisum or paradise, being, a relevant example, the hanging gardens of the Babylonian queen Semiramis, who was considered in her time as one of the lost wonders of the ancient world.
During the Middle Ages, the great monasteries also adopted this idea of an earthly paradise, applying it to the cloisters of their monasteries, where the Cistercian maxim of ‘ora et labora’ was soon applied; that is to say, ‘pray and work’.
Already in the dark scriptoriums of these monasteries, the idea arose of recovering the great classical texts - hence their cultural function and the idea that they were the light of the Western world at the time - calls that would increase in the Renaissance, when the artistic current of the time, not only recovered the ancestral vision of the perfection of the human body, but also returned to remove from its ostracism the beauty of the gods and heroes of classical mythology.
A theme, on the other hand, that was always liked by the monarchies, who demanded, for their own use and private enjoyment, the creation of sumptuous gardens, where the presence of these disturbing figures was never lacking, which centuries before would have made everyone cry out. Heaven to Saint Bernard -Bernardo de Clairvaux- when he openly criticized the ridiculous presence of monsters in the Romanesque capitals, which absurdly distracted the monks' attention from their duties.
Today, as is the case with great monasteries or marvelous cathedrals, many royal gardens are also open to the public, upon payment of an entrance fee, which makes Francisco de Quevedo's famous phrase once again fashionable, that even for access to paradise ... powerful gentleman is Mr. Money.
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