"In a letter to Sir Thomas Browne about his proposed magnum opus on gardens, John Evelyn stated his purpose "to refine upon some particulars, especially concerning the ornaments of Gardens, which I shal endeavor so to handle that persons of all conditions and facilities, which delight in Gardens, may therein encounter something for their owne advantage". In his Elysium Britannicum, or The Royal Gardens, Evelyn indeed produced a rich document, an assemblage of the horticultural knowledge and wisdom of the seventeenth century. An intriguing intellectual whom many have called a virtuoso, Evelyn was a garden designer, a noted author and translator of garden books, and a founding member of the Royal Society in 1660, where experimental science was at the heart of intellectual debate. Interlacing in his work practical, literary, and philosophical approaches to landscape architecture, Evelyn created the first large-scale encyclopedic work on the science and art of gardening."--BOOK JACKET.