Terrace garden

Since a level site is generally regarded as a requisite for comfort and repose, the terrace as a raised viewing platform made an early appearance in the ancient Persian gardening tradition, where the enclosed orchard, or paradise, was to be viewed from a ceremonial tent.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon must have been built on an artificial mountain with stepped terraces, like those on a ziggurat.

At Praeneste during the early Imperial period, the sanctuary of Fortuna was enlarged and elaborated, the natural slope being shaped into a series of terraces linked by stairs.

During the Italian Renaissance, the formalized, civilizing imprint of human control over wild nature expressed in terracing that was combined with stairs and water features, drew villa patrons and garden designers to escarpments that surveyed a handsome prospect.

At the influential Cortile del Belvedere at the Vatican Palace, perfected under a series of popes from the earliest 16th century, the backdrop within the enclosed court was a raised terrace.