Looks at the evolution of Persian gardens from ancient times to the present day and their impact on modern garden design.

In both decoration and design, the grand buildings and gardens of traditional Persia consistently refer to "paradise." The very word itself refers to a sense of heavenly perfection, derived from an early Iranian term for "the Shah's royal hunting grounds." The fine touches of heaven that lie behind the colorful tiled faç ades of palace pavilions and mosques still shine in this richly illustrated and scholarly work. Enter gardens with intricate fountains and majestic ponds fed by water that is sourced from underground aqueducts dating to the 6th century. From ancient mirrored shrines of Shiraz and geometric gardens of Kashan to the ornate domes of Ispahan, here is a glorious photographic timeline drawn in water, brick, and ceramic ornamentation along the 3,000 years of the region's architecture.

A study of the Paradise Garden in Persia from the sixth through the seventeenth century explores its design, architectural development, and relation to the Paradise myth and ancient nature worship

For more than three thousand years, the Persian garden has been a focus of Iran's national imagination, influencing its art, literature, and even religion. The Persian garden's inspirational role has, however, extended far beyond the land of its origin; its precepts have exerted a profound influence on garden design around the world. The Persian Garden: Echoes of Paradise chronicles the history of the Persian garden, from the magnificent sanctuaries and hunting parks of fifth-century b.c. Persepolis to the magical nightingale gardens of nineteenth-century Tehran. All were seen as a kind of earthly paradise (the English word paradise has its roots in the old Persian word pairi-daeza meaning a walled space). To an astonishing extent, that vision seems justified. This book was meticulously researched and created over a period of six years in, Paris, Tehran and Washington by photographer, Mehdi Khansari and architect Minouch Yavari, together with the renowned Persian architect and architectural historian Reza Moghtader. It explains the philosophy behind Persian garden design and offers an authoritative account of its developmentintroducing new historical material in the process. This extraordinary story is enhanced by vivid descriptions of Persian gardens as seen through the eyes of travelers to Iran during the past five hundred years. Over 240 illustrations in full color, complement the text. They include magnificent color photographs, old plates and engravings, as well as exquisite architectural renderings and plans of the sites and the gardens. A selection of the finest Persian garden-carpets, textiles, miniature paintings, stone reliefs, painted tiles, pottery, and poetry, augment the reader's experience of an ancient art form that for centuries has sought to meld the physical and the spiritual.

Born in a Mesopotamian village in the third century, the son of a Parthian warrior, Mani grows up in a volatile and dangerous world. As battle rages for control over the Middle East between the great Roman and Persian empires, as Jews and Christians, Buddhists and Zoroastrians fight for ascendency, Mani- painter, mystic, physician and prophet- makes his way through the battlefields to preach to his incandescent doctrine of humility, tolerance and love, a doctrine that comes to be known as Manicheanism. A vivid glimpse of the ancient world in all its perfumed splendour and cruelty, an elegantly philosophical discourse on the fall of man, THE GARDENS OF LIGHT is a story of great beauty and resonance, exquisitely told.

In the seventeenth century, the Persian city of Isfahan was a crossroads of international trade and diplomacy. Manuscript paintings produced within the city’s various cultural, religious, and ethnic groups reveal the vibrant artistic legacy of the Safavid Empire. Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Getty Museum, Book Arts of Isfahan offers a fascinating account of the ways in which the artists of Isfahan used their art to record the life around them and at the same time define their own identities within a complex society.

Illustrated by more than five hundred photographs, offers garden lovers a tour of fifty of the world's most beautiful gardens.