The Form and Function of some Gardens in Kyoto in 1565 that can be Read from the Description of History of Japan by Luis Frois

Abstract

Luis Frois (1532 - 1597), a Portuguese Catholic missionary, described some gardens of temples and mansions in Kyoto which he visited in 1565, in his work History of Japan. Through the examination of the description, I offer the following interpretation that could enrich the image of the late 16th century gardens and their social function in Kyoto:
1) Pruning technique, which Frois referred to as a kind of topiary in the article on the mansion garden of the Ashikaga shogun, might have been originally developed in Japan by this age.
2) A dry landscape garden of a monastery of the Daitokuji temple had flowers of four seasons as components, which suggests that it might have been more usual at that time for a dry landscape garden to have flowers as components than in the Edo period.
3) Some gardens were well maintained and might have functioned as a relaxation place, a kind of tourism resource and a symbol of the order, in spite of the fact that it had been troublous age for one hundred years.