The word Arcadia conjures up a vision of an idyllic place suffused with beauty and tranquility, poetry and music. It is a heaven on earth, visually and intellectually perfect, with comfort enough to dispel the irritations of everyday living. It is natures Utopia, irresistibly attractive, impossible to capture in total, yet inspiring infinite attempts at recreation.
What was the source of this enchanting vision? It came from an area still known as Arcadia, a plateau in the centre of the Peloponese in Greece. It is surrounded by mountains crossed only with difficulty; in spring, the rivers flow and the vegetation is lush, but in summer the earth bakes hard and dry and the rivers dwindle to a trickle, only to turn into rushing torrents when the winter rains return. It is a challenging environment, not a perfect pastoral landscape in which life is easy. The early inhabitants of this bleak isolated setting are said to have led a simple life enriched by piety and kindness.
Writing in Ecologues in the 1st century BC, Virgil turned their way of life into an idyllic existence, where youthful Arcadian shepherds were both poets and musicians, and roamed through an exquisite pastoral landscape. This was the vision that inspired Renaissance scholars, and which they attempted to create in their gardens.

Renaissance scholars mistakenly saw in Virgils sunlit Arcadia man and nature in harmony, a harmony that brought harvests from the land, with time to spare for both contemplation and entertainment, while the mischievous Pan played his pipes in the shadows. The concept was profoundly appealing.
?May Woods, Introduction, Visions of Arcadia: European Gardens from Renaissance to Rococo (1996)

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