Latest / Ridiculous History / The Tangled History of Topiary, Part One: The Ancient Art of Fancy Plants

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The Tangled History of Topiary, Part One: The Ancient Art of Fancy Plants · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's have a very special shout out
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  Speaker 1: to our favorite returning guest. What are the core members
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of the Ridiculous History family, the legendary super producer mister
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  Speaker 1: Casey Pegrum.
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  Speaker 2: Glad to be back with you guys again.
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  Speaker 1: Good to have.
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  Speaker 3: We were just talking about like marvelification of cinema and
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  Speaker 3: like we've got the Ridiculous Cinematic Universe universe coming in.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, you're the core Universe returning You know what
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  Speaker 1: I mean? This is so I've been your Noel. We've
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  Speaker 1: got cases. Yeah, we've got a shout out to Max.
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  Speaker 1: White Pants Williams off On Adventures and the.
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  Speaker 3: Pole are still clean. I hope they're still pristine.
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  Speaker 1: I hope he keeps them under glass And you know, no,
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  Speaker 1: I don't. I think I mentioned it, but I didn't
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  Speaker 1: want to go too hard on because I didn't want
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  Speaker 1: him to feel eclipsed. But I also have a pair
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  Speaker 1: of white pants for a wedding and I straight up
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  Speaker 1: did not wear them because I was like, it's gonna
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  Speaker 1: be a long, hot Tuscan.
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  Speaker 3: Afternoon in Tuscan. That's you know what, wearing a white
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  Speaker 3: suit in Tuscany is very on brand. I think that's
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  Speaker 3: that's cool. It's very Godfather too. I guess there is.
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  Speaker 3: There are photographs of me that exists out there in
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  Speaker 3: the world somewhere of me as a small child wearing
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  Speaker 3: a white suit to a wedding as well. So while
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  Speaker 3: I'm not with you contemporarily, young me is on board.
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  Speaker 1: I've got a I got a sear sucker. I call
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  Speaker 1: it my Televan suit Casey saw me wear it a
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  Speaker 1: few times back in the day.
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  Speaker 3: You remember what I'm talking about. Yeah, how does one
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  Speaker 3: suck a sere? Ben?
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  Speaker 1: Well, you can suck up to a seer by following
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  Speaker 1: a cult, right, But one thing that stands out when
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  Speaker 1: you Okay, my very close friend who had this waying
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  Speaker 1: in Italy, he weddings can be stressful, they're beautiful, right.
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  Speaker 1: I was there just to basically drop a hot three minutes,
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  Speaker 1: do my tight three minutes there. And when I got
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  Speaker 1: there first time in Italy, I looked around and this
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  Speaker 1: is my buddy, Corey Oliver. We all know him, and
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  Speaker 1: and I was like, Corey dang man, all those paintings
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  Speaker 1: that Olive Gardener are accurate. This is what it looks like.
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  Speaker 1: And he said, don't say that, dude, I've worked so
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  Speaker 1: hard on this. But I looked at it and you
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  Speaker 1: look out across you know, this like wine country landscape,
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  Speaker 1: and it seems that all of the trees and the
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  Speaker 1: shrubs are just so. They seem some unnaturally manicure. Italy
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  Speaker 1: runs Topiery, at least in a natural sense. And I
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  Speaker 1: think it's something that you know, we're gonna we're gonna
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  Speaker 1: spend some time on this, No, because our research associates
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  Speaker 1: are also pretty excited about this. Did you guys have
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  Speaker 1: like Topiery growing up? Did you go through hedge mazes
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  Speaker 1: anything like that?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I don't think we are of the
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  Speaker 3: echelon of society that has Topieri. I don't know about y'all.
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  Speaker 3: My upbringing was somewhat middle middle class at best. Topieri
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  Speaker 3: seem the kind of thing that go in like Tuscan
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  Speaker 3: gardens or like you know, builtmore estate. Don't they have
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  Speaker 3: Topieri's at I'm pretty sure they do, or like you know,
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  Speaker 3: the Overlook hotel in the show.
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  Speaker 2: I was gonna say, that's my association as reading the
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  Speaker 2: shining the novel and reading about the topiery animals coming
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  Speaker 2: to life and all that.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, which they didn't really play up in the
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  Speaker 3: movie at all. There's no Yeah, Edward Scissorhands topierism, get
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  Speaker 3: the ariaization. Yes for the.
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  Speaker 1: Topiery enthusiast in the crowd, a huge contingent of ridiculous historians.
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  Speaker 1: The time has come. I remember many years ago, I
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  Speaker 1: would like we we probably all had to do a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of landscaping, housework stuff growing up. And Uh,
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  Speaker 1: one of the things that I don't want to say,
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  Speaker 1: got in trouble for I got reprimanded for was we
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  Speaker 1: had one of those electric hedge trimmer clippery things. I
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  Speaker 1: did some topiery and then and then my mother, who
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  Speaker 1: has passed, uh saved me and was like, you messed
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  Speaker 1: up this shrub. So now while you're here, go ahead
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  Speaker 1: and do something with the rest of them.
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  Speaker 3: And so continuity is key. There we go. She she
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  Speaker 3: she just defied me. But uh, we don't know.
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  Speaker 1: It turns out topiery as an art has a craft,
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  Speaker 1: does a pursuit is pretty ancient. We in the modern
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  Speaker 1: day have no idea who looked at a shrub and said, Nah,
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna jush it up a little.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Topierre is kind of like the balloon animals of gardening,
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  Speaker 3: you know, in a lot of ways. And it's older
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  Speaker 3: than you'd think, which I guess makes sense because you know,
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  Speaker 3: as long as there have been people walking the earth,
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  Speaker 3: I think there have probably been some form of bush. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: they predate humans, but I think it's probably right. And
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  Speaker 3: if there's one thing that humans have always been known
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  Speaker 3: for us having imagination. You look at a thing, you say,
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  Speaker 3: you know what, what if that thing were another thing?
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  Speaker 3: And how can I make that happen? Maybe with this
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  Speaker 3: rock or just by you know, tearing away branches with
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  Speaker 3: my rough hewn you know ape Hans.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we know Romans were fans of topiiization and they
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  Speaker 1: seem to have picked it up like so many other
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  Speaker 1: things from the Greeks of Old, and then the ancient
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  Speaker 1: Egyptians were also snipping away at topiary. We're getting a
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  Speaker 1: lot of this from a great article on country life
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  Speaker 1: Topiary the ancient art of transforming nature into cubes, pyramids,
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  Speaker 1: and peacocks. So that's a we always love a shout
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  Speaker 1: out to a weird headline.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, I think The key here is it
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  Speaker 3: was It's always been a sign of opulence, because like,
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  Speaker 3: who has the time, you know, or the resources to
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  Speaker 3: do something so borderline frivolous and absurd. You know that
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  Speaker 3: requires a lot of care and maintenance. I mean I
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  Speaker 3: could barely get a haircut on a regular basis, let
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  Speaker 3: alone keep my topiary from becoming overgrown.
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  Speaker 1: I've been wearing a hat all week because I haven't
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  Speaker 1: made the time to shower.
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  Speaker 3: So I get it.
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  Speaker 1: You know, people are out here change in the world.
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  Speaker 1: I fell asleep trying to put on a pair of
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  Speaker 1: pants one time.
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  Speaker 3: I love the notion though, that wearing a hat is
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  Speaker 3: somehow a good cover up for not showering.
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  Speaker 1: It is also we're recording remotely, so no one can
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  Speaker 1: smell me. Everybody pretend I smell amazing, but I can
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  Speaker 1: tell you.
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  Speaker 3: From experience, you do smell amazing. Ben is that lavender?
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  Speaker 1: He is Laughingteric Casey follow my only fans, So, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you're raising excellent point here.
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  Speaker 3: I will put topiary.
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  Speaker 1: It reminds me of an earlier episode we did on
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  Speaker 1: Garden Hermits. You know, Topier is like a step beneath
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  Speaker 1: Garden Hermits, beneath paying.
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  Speaker 3: A human otherwise homeless guy.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd be a lawn exhibit. But we know that
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  Speaker 1: back in as far as one hundred CE. Plenty the
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  Speaker 1: Younger talked about his garden in his country via or
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  Speaker 1: villa because to your point, Nol, it is something that
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  Speaker 1: pretty wealthy people tend to do in his society. And
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  Speaker 1: he was like, my garden and my country house, I've
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  Speaker 1: got this whole slope adorned with figures of animals in bah.
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  Speaker 1: I've got a lawn that's enclosed with evergreen shaped in
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  Speaker 1: a variety of forms. It was like his version of cribs.
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  Speaker 1: That's why he was describing this.
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  Speaker 3: I think animals in box would be a good name
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  Speaker 3: for a band. I don't know why, it just it
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  Speaker 3: just hit me that way. It's true, Pliny the Younger.
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  Speaker 3: I guess it related to Planny of the Elder, or
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  Speaker 3: they were just trying to keep our planey straight. They're
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  Speaker 3: trying to franchise it. Got it, got it, got it,
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  Speaker 3: got it well. He describes cypress trees that were cut
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  Speaker 3: into the shape of figures, letters, even like messages, inscriptions,
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  Speaker 3: certain kind of things you might see carved in marble,
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  Speaker 3: like monuments like obelisks, and such again in this Tuscan villa,
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  Speaker 3: and he credited a guy named Guy, a guy named
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  Speaker 3: Gaius Guias Madius Calvinus, for introducing this whole concept's art
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  Speaker 3: form to none other than Julius Caesar, who you know,
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  Speaker 3: when you're Caesar, when you're king, and youths your fancy,
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  Speaker 3: it's going to strike the fancy of the whole you know, empire.
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  Speaker 3: And that's exactly what happened. It became quite popular across
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  Speaker 3: the Roman Empire, right.
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  Speaker 1: Because, as we see over and over again in human societies,
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  Speaker 1: when the people at up top do something, even if
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  Speaker 1: it's kind of dumb, then other people who aspire to
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  Speaker 1: be at that echelon will mimic it, will emulate it.
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  Speaker 1: I think another good, probably one of the most extreme
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  Speaker 1: examples of that, is the origin of Castillan Spanish, where
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  Speaker 1: you know, the ruler had a lisp, so everybody else
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  Speaker 1: was like, oh yeah, poor stupleto and that's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of yeah, yeah yeah. Luckily, that's no longer the thing.
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  Speaker 1: If you go to Spain today, you'll see that most
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  Speaker 1: most Spanish nationals, as younger generations come to the forefront,
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  Speaker 1: they are less likely to have that accent.
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  Speaker 3: That is interesting. I did not know that story, Ben.
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  Speaker 3: That's super cool and random. History is full of this
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  Speaker 3: kind of stuff. So the the art of topiery, I
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  Speaker 3: think it's just topiery. I think that's its own plural
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  Speaker 3: or whatever. Or yeah, topiery is the thing, and the
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  Speaker 3: art of topiery is the thing that you do. It
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  Speaker 3: was super popular under Caesar. But much like early flush
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  Speaker 3: toilet technology, when the Roman Empire fell, so did topiery
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  Speaker 3: fell out of fashion at the very least, because largely,
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  Speaker 3: you know, it was tough times. It was like a
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  Speaker 3: time of struggle, when gardening and farming was more about
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  Speaker 3: being functional than it was about being decorative. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, and also I should say, no, Casey fell a
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  Speaker 1: ridiculous historians, just in the interest of transparency. The story
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  Speaker 1: about the medieval king speaking with a lisp has been well,
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  Speaker 1: people back and forth over whether that's a myth. So
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  Speaker 1: we lest we unfairly characterize medieval Spanish kings as you know,
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  Speaker 1: their versions of Mike Tyson's Like any aesthetic, we see
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  Speaker 1: a wax and a wane, a rise and a fall cyclically,
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  Speaker 1: and to your point, noll As, constant infighting in these
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  Speaker 1: different empires made cities increasingly resort to big walls for security.
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  Speaker 1: There was less and less space for gardens, even if
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  Speaker 1: you were the people at the tippidy Top the Grand
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  Speaker 1: pubas so the topieri's ornamental nature had to shift. Now
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  Speaker 1: it had to have a function. You needed to have
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  Speaker 1: fruit trees. You need to have things that could produce
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  Speaker 1: food in case of you know, another siege, which was
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  Speaker 1: a constant reality of the time.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. So also plants needed to be quite hearty, you know,
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  Speaker 3: and not to be delicate, dainty little elephant shaped bushes,
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  Speaker 3: you know, things that would stand under serious weather conditions
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  Speaker 3: or as you put it, been like, you know, certain
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  Speaker 3: wartime conditions, even although probably no amount of heartiness is
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  Speaker 3: gonna you know, stand up to a you know, scorched
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  Speaker 3: earth kind of campaign, right exactly. Yeah, this is not
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  Speaker 3: the Uh, this is not the place for the precious lilies,
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  Speaker 3: as we found actually, uh, because plants needed light and space,
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  Speaker 3: and in my opinion, they need some kind gardening to
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  Speaker 3: really thrive. You know, I'm a fan.
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  Speaker 1: I think we're all fans of talking to plants just
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  Speaker 1: for the fundzies.
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  Speaker 3: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: Because of all these things plants needed, and because of
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  Speaker 1: these wartime situations that seem to occur constantly. There wasn't
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  Speaker 1: a lot of gardening of any kind in Europe for
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  Speaker 1: several centuries. Gardening went from being a privilege of the
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  Speaker 1: wealthy and a workingman's industry to a thing that didn't
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  Speaker 1: really happen. It became anachronistic until Charlemagne, our friend from
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  Speaker 1: the breakfast.
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  Speaker 3: Club Charleman the gut mm hmm.
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  Speaker 1: Until Charlemagne in his younger days and eight hundred CE
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  Speaker 1: brought that gardening.
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  Speaker 3: I knew it was only a matter of time. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I love so so funny like Charlemagne. I guess Casey,
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  Speaker 3: if we could put you on the case, that is
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  Speaker 3: like a French portmanteau. I guess that means Charles the Great.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's it's from the French form of the Latin
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  Speaker 2: adjective magnus, meaning great. So yeah, it's like if you
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  Speaker 2: in French if you said manifique. So it's sort of
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  Speaker 2: like a yeah, like a signific sense great.
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  Speaker 1: But it's also like saying vin number or ATM machine.
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  Speaker 1: Then it's like Charles the Great, the Great.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a little redundant. Casey, oh the
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  Speaker 3: case Casey on the case and bump bump. He is
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  Speaker 3: very much interested in this functional type of farming, you know,
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  Speaker 3: which is interesting. You think he maybe would have brought
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  Speaker 3: back Topieri's right away, but he's more interested in herb
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  Speaker 3: gardens and fruit trees and bringing this stuff back to France.
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  Speaker 3: Around a thousand a d. Monasteries followed suit and started,
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  Speaker 3: you know, we know monasterias have a history also of
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  Speaker 3: like you know, brewing beer and doing kind of more
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  Speaker 3: bespoke kind of handcrafts and stuff like that. They started
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  Speaker 3: cultivating herbs and flowers and little shrubs, a little shrubs
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  Speaker 3: like the knights who say me, shrubbery, that's shrubbery.
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  Speaker 1: And so after about one thousand a D or ce
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  Speaker 1: whatever you prefer, when this stuff is happening in Europe,
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  Speaker 1: we see that there are also these things called paradise
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  Speaker 1: gardens in Spain and Sicily. And these are a little
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  Speaker 1: bit different because they're not entirely functional, they're not sources
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  Speaker 1: of food during sieges. They come from the Moorish occupation
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  Speaker 1: because the Islamic culture controlled these parts of the world
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  Speaker 1: during this time. And want to shout out to beyond
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  Speaker 1: Bankies over who have a great article on the history
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  Speaker 1: of Topiaries by Larry Hurley, who talks about this. There's
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  Speaker 1: an interesting sort of contrast here, because, like you said,
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  Speaker 1: the monasteries are growing herbs and flowers and shrubs, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and they're using these things for food. They're using them
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  Speaker 1: to flavor different beverages that they are creating to make
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  Speaker 1: dyes for the illustrated manuscripts. The Moorish paradise gardens are saying, hey,
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  Speaker 1: let's just have a nice landscape to look at, you
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  Speaker 1: know what I mean, Let's take in the sunset and
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  Speaker 1: watch the butterflies flit about. So the thing it was
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  Speaker 1: cool everybody at some in some way. Both of these
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  Speaker 1: pursuits led to green space. And now we have to
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  Speaker 1: introduce the Anglo Saxons and the Vikings, who are you know,
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  Speaker 1: mainly known for the pillaging.
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  Speaker 3: The plundering, the scorching of the earth, not necessarily for
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: their love of gardening. Yeah, it's interesting. It does, however,
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  Speaker 3: look to be the case that Norman Nobles actually reintroduced
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  Speaker 3: concepts of topiary, perhaps inspired by things they had seen
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  Speaker 3: in their travels Islamic gardens for example, in Sicily. You know,
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  Speaker 3: some of these types of gardens enclosed plots that added
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  Speaker 3: a little bit of privacy hedges kind of you know,
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  Speaker 3: in castle courtyards and some of these monasteries. And this
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  Speaker 3: is where the term I believe horticulture comes in, where
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  Speaker 3: we have the term hordous conclusis. Well, it's a Harry
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  Speaker 3: Potter spell, right, I think that's right. Which was it
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  Speaker 3: was a practice I guess, of trimming hedges and topping
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  Speaker 3: them with almost like the kind of thing you'd see
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  Speaker 3: on the top of a Christmas tree, but with like standards,
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  Speaker 3: you know, like the eagle or whatever it might be, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And there was an increasing trend of sophistication
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  Speaker 1: because now topiary is back, baby, we're going Greco Roman
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  Speaker 1: with it. You would see more intricate cuts of shrubs.
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  Speaker 1: In the late thirteen hundreds we saw the rise of
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  Speaker 1: a topiery known as the astraw, and things like rosemary.
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  Speaker 3: This is interesting.
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  Speaker 1: We'll talk a little bit about bonds eye at some point,
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  Speaker 1: but shrubs like rosemary could be trained into these semi
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: uniform kind of standardized shapes, and you would do that
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  Speaker 1: by giving them an exos elati basically iron frame that
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  Speaker 1: has a couple of different hoops of decreasing.
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  Speaker 3: Size and then that would kind of limit its growth
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  Speaker 3: in a certain way to make it tick on that
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  Speaker 3: shape on its own. That's pretty cool.
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  Speaker 1: And this coincided too. Again, the Italian Renaissance occurs later,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: and the Italian Renaissance is a bunch of people in
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Italy going full fanboy, like beast mode fanboy for everything
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  Speaker 1: they consider ancient rome. And part of that surprise surprise
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: was topiary.
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  Speaker 3: So the kind of template I guess for this type
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  Speaker 3: of garden did really come out of Italy. Europe really
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  Speaker 3: looked to that model for a lot of these decorative
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  Speaker 3: gardens for several hundred years. These included these herb gardens.
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  Speaker 3: These formed liquid to your point, been the kind of
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: restrained growth of these clipped herbs and these shrubs that
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  Speaker 3: would form, you know, when looked at from above, these
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: really intricate geometric patterns. A lot of potted plants were happening.
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  Speaker 3: There would be espallier trees. Is that a type of
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  Speaker 3: a tree ben or is that a style.
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  Speaker 1: That's kind of the exoskeleton we're talking about.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, that's the word. That's cool. I learned something new today.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: I learned several new things today. I try to learn
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  Speaker 3: something new. Most days. I think we all do here
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  Speaker 3: in ridiculous history world. But yeah, these kind of little accents.
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  Speaker 3: And then also Casey to your point about the shining,
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  Speaker 3: they didn't have spooky, you know, living topiary animals, but
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  Speaker 3: they did have a pretty boss hedge maze, which is
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: a great, you know sequence in that film. I've never
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: personally walked a hedge maze or a corn maze for
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: that matter, have you all sounder? Just yeah, what's it like? Uh,
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  Speaker 3: It's it's cool.
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  Speaker 1: They run the gamut because there are some that are
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: meant to be more away a while away the afternoon,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: and so for some of those they might not always
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: be taller than human height. But then there are others
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: that are really intricate. There's one I want to visit.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: You remember that book, The Codex.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: That I love.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: The publisher of that, who is like a very old
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Italian money guy, was also known for having the world's
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: largest hedge maze on his a state in Italy. And yeah,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: he passed away. That's a flex. That's a very specific,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: weird flex. We should probably have Miles and Jack back on.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: But but yeah, and then corn maze is you know,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: a seasonal you can find them here in the southern US,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and those are those are kind of like I would
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: put them in the pantheon of a Tumnaal hangout, things
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: like hay rides, which you mentioned a previous episode, or
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: you know, outdoor haunted houses.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Question is the minotaur at the center of a corn
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: maze made of corn?
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I don't believe if there is a minotaur, but it'd
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: be cool if they had like a minitar Yeah.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: If they had either scarecrow or straight up cow. I
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: do like that, just to get surprised a just scruntled cow,
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: you know. So yeah, what about you? Casey corn mazes
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: hedge maases.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: I have not been to one.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: I was looking actually at pumpkin patches here in Georgia,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: and there is one that has some you know, a
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: tiny little cornd kind of thing nearby.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: I think that's the one I went to with with
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: my family over the weekend. It's called Bert's Pumpkin Patch
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: and it's not on site, but I think there's a
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: corn maze adjacent. It's like a separate property. But they
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: do do a hay ride that has some very subtle,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: not so subtle religious indoctrination coming from Animatronic pumpkins.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: And our pal our pals Dylan Fagan uh was there
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: as well as Miranda Hawkins.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: I want to say, yeah, so itwas a good time.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: I spent way too much money on pumpkins. But my
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: house is looking very festive right now. Nice, you're a
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: pumpkin ear and please do carve. I love it.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: I love carving pumpkins, So this weekend.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Nice.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: So the Medicis who are known for doing some evil
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: stuff and also being big art patrons, and they're the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: billionaires of their day. Basically they love flexes and so
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: people in Medici's social class and above are all about
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: keeping up with the other obscenely wealthy Joneses. They want
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: to always one up each other with the most expensive,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: opulent displays of wealth, the biggest parties, the best art,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the nicest, most impressive buildings. Horticulture is no exception. You
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: will see things like the Villa Karachi right outside Florence,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: completed around fourteen sixteen. It has all kinds of topiary spheres, porticos, temples, vosses, earns,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: a bunch of animals, giant people, size things, men, women,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: wild you know, famous people.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I haven't really witnessed one of these. I'm you know,
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: you know what happens when you get older, you get
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: really into like pots and buying nice pots and pans
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: and sweaters and gardening. Like I just you know, I
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: never in a million years would have been like I
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: need a garden, but lo and behold, I spent way
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: too much money on landscaping my backyard and I love
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: it. It's not nothing like this, but it's just nice to have.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I think it's maybe humanity's desire to
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: kind of control their surroundings or to in some way exert,
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: you know, their influence over like the earth or whatever.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: And a lot of the stuff that we're getting to better,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: that we're working through, it's all based around leisure time
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: and like, you know, the ability to do something just
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: because because it's nice, like the you know, let's watch
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: the butterflies and the and the topiary garden. But I
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: have not seen things like this in person. Have you
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: been a see like in your travels you would have
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: wandered through some topiary gardens.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you can see. Actually, we are immensely
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: privileged to live in the fair metropolis of Atlanta, because
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Atlanta is home to the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: They have allis in Wonderland themed ones, don't they. Yeah
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: they I haven't been. Okay, it's a great it's a
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: week in date, you know, takes take day and.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: The kid and and I love going there as a group.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: They have a lot of cool larger than life sculptures.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Of course, being you know, being that it is a garden,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: it is seasonal, so check ahead. It's kind of like
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: the High Museum. They have rotating stuff that goes in
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and out, and they have a lot of famous artists
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: that come through, uh who put their own spin on things.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we can see the topiary now, I believe
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: what is it? It's mid October as we record.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: We'll have to check. We'll check at the end and
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: we'll see what they've got going on. This might be
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: like when we decided to go to a Monster Truck rally.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was really really fine, except I did bring
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: my kid, who has some serious sensory overload issues. Monster
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: truck Rally not the best place for a kid like that,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: but it was definitely an experience. It was also intensely hot,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: and I forgot that there's no shade in those bleachers.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: You're just like under the beating, you know, oppressive sun.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: Just the scale of it too. Man, it was neat.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: I'm glad I went. I don't think I'll ever go again,
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: but like I can, I can check.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: I would go if it was a different time of year,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: or if it was more convenient. But it's just it's
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: just cool to see.
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: When you see a monster truck rally, what you're witnessing
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: is the two absolute opposite spectrums of human intelligence and
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: curiosity occurring simultaneously. Like imagine being smart enough to build
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: this huge stadium, being ingenious enough to not only invents
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: but invent these amazing cartoon cars, and then also being
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: human enough to say, well, now we should wreck them,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: you know, hold my beer. That's that's humanity.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: So the Italian gardeners become a huge industry, right, Italian
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: topiery specialists, and they keep expanding to build these increasingly
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: bigger things, as the Medici type dudes are in an
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: opulence arms race.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: These are the same folks that were like patrons of
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: the arts, and they had some very refined tastes and
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: they did some amazing things, you know. They they were
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: they were patrons and benefactors of incredible artists. We probably
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: would not have would be able to enjoy the work
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: of some of these figures if it weren't for the
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: for the Mediciese. And they also were big fans of
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: flexing their wealth, you know, the world. And by the way, Ben,
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: the gardens that you mentioned were designed by another individual
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: that these folks, we could say, were you know, acting
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: as benefactors for the architect Leon Battista Alberti, who incorporated
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: some really elaborate like that. You know. Again, these Medachiese
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: wanted anything that they did, they went large, and they
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: wanted Alberti to take the Topieri's places they'd never been before.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: So he had these like boxes Topieri eyed boxes, and
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: with that contained spheres, temples, urns. We had oxen, a
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: partridge in a pear tree, a bear, goats, I'm his
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: name and stuff. Now they probably had yeah, warriors, a haarpee.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: I mean this is like you know, you ever see
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: those guys on some of those like really over the
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: top like cooking shows that like work in chocolate, you know,
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: and they make a fricking race car out of chocolate.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: It's more like fabricating you know, a product than it
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: is making you know, a delicious dish. That's the level
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: that these folks were going, you know, to get the detail,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: to have like heartbeat with the talons and like warriors, philosophers,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: cardinals and popes. Absolutely wild stuff.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this stuff we're naming. Even if it
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: sounds like we're being a little redundant there, you have
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: to understand, if you can imagine a topiary sculpture, they
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: probably did it. And they had visitors, international visitors from
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: places like France. So the royalty, the aristocracy of France
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: comes over. Actually I'm being diplomatic. The kings of France
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: invaded at least several times, so it's kind of a
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: visit with a motive. And while they are invading and
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: sewing chaos, they like the gardens and so you know,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: war is a great communicator of culture, unfortunately in addition
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: to all the evil stuff it creates. So these French
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: kings start importing Italian styles for all kinds of stuff,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: for food, for you know, cuisine, for fashion, for literature,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and of course for topiary. And eventually, for a while,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: just like the Romans were kind of aping Greek style.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: For a while, the French were just emulating Italian style
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: until they began developing their own sort of vibe. And
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: that vibe is a little more militaristic, almost like rigid symmetrical.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very aesthetic. It really was like very kind of
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: weirdly almost like brutalists, you know, topiery, rigid. You're right,
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: like you said, been very rigid, a lot of symmetry.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: Very West. Wes Anderson would have would approve. He's also
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: he's a big Francophile and you know that Casey Wes
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: Anderson is like permanently apartment in Paris. I think he's
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: there pretty much all the time. He loves it.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Whoa hold the phote or hold the hedge trimmers.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: This is a two.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, watch yourself. We've got on deep and we're going
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: deeper because there's a lot more to the story of
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Topiary than you might clock if you're just walking through Versailles.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: This is right on this episode. We went deep. Next
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: episode we're going to go wide and hard in the
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: paint when it comes to Topiari's the balloon Animals of Gardening, so.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Big, big thanks of course to Casey Pegram our super
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: producer dear dear family member of the show Casey, we're
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: going to ask.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: We'll give you till part.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Two to ask if you want to, you know, make
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: this a semi regular thing. But thank you so much. Man,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: you're just here the business.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I'll mull it over, give us some.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Thought, all right, Yes, we don't want to do a
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: hard sell. Thanks also to of course, mister Max Williams,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: super producer, Max White Pants Williams.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Guy's pants are just so white, blindingly white, blinded by
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: the white pants.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course thanks to his real life sibling
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed this slap and bopya here right now.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Chris fhrasciotis than Jeff Coates here in Spirits, all the hits,
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Jonathan Strickland, that guy you Ben, She's Louise and hey
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: with all of you, we'll see you next time. Focus
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.