Post #14, is exactly how I see it as well, as illustrated in the pictures you posted. I collected thousands of aerial photos of gardens and also many medieval drawings of gardens, many of them similar to the ones you posted. I was especially looking for the ones with the X-shaped garden (they are less common).
The Garden of Gethsemane is + shaped rather than X shaped.
This one I found interesting because of the plant-covered archways along the edges. Notice the VMS "rows" have something similar along the right edge:
I suspect that the flowing lines on the far right might be slopes or possibly water feeding the gardens.
Here are the d'este Gardens (later than the VMS, but representative of the kinds of gardens that were extant):
This one has both the + and the X shape and is contained within an oval:
The Padua gardens are also contained within a circle:
The gardens of Rome show how slopes next to major buildings were often covered in gardens (I collected all these years ago but never had enough time to blog about them):
One of the things I learned in the process is that gardens like this were very common on the slopes next to palaces, universities and monasteries. They were everywhere, mainly for food, but also for pleasure and entertainment for nobility. Nobles also had decorative gardens, as documented by Bessler.
Thousands of gardens with arched courtyards around them as well. Acres and acres of gardens. There are only about 360 million people on the planet in those days—an average of twenty times as much land per person.
The Garden of Gethsemane is + shaped rather than X shaped.
This one I found interesting because of the plant-covered archways along the edges. Notice the VMS "rows" have something similar along the right edge:
I suspect that the flowing lines on the far right might be slopes or possibly water feeding the gardens.
Here are the d'este Gardens (later than the VMS, but representative of the kinds of gardens that were extant):
This one has both the + and the X shape and is contained within an oval:
The Padua gardens are also contained within a circle:
The gardens of Rome show how slopes next to major buildings were often covered in gardens (I collected all these years ago but never had enough time to blog about them):
One of the things I learned in the process is that gardens like this were very common on the slopes next to palaces, universities and monasteries. They were everywhere, mainly for food, but also for pleasure and entertainment for nobility. Nobles also had decorative gardens, as documented by Bessler.
Thousands of gardens with arched courtyards around them as well. Acres and acres of gardens. There are only about 360 million people on the planet in those days—an average of twenty times as much land per person.