What is a Historic Garden?

The 1981 Florence Charter, adopted by ICOMOS in 1982, defined a Historic Garden as “an architectural and horticultural composition of interest to the public from the historical or artistic point of view. As such, it is to be considered as a monument."

"A historic garden is an architectural composition whose constituents are primarily vegetal and therefore living, which means that they are perishable and renewable. Thus its appearance reflects the perpetual balance between the cycle of the seasons, the growth and decay of nature and the desire of the artist and craftsman to keep it permanently unchanged.”

In turn, the Spanish Historic Heritage Law (1985) defined a Historic Garden “as a delimited space, the product of the arrangement of natural elements by human beings, sometimes completed with manufactured structures and deemed to be of interest according to its origin, historic past or its aesthetic, sensory or botanic values”.