French formal garden
A French formal garden or "jardin à la française", is a specific kind of formal garden, laid out in the manner of André Le Nôtre; it is centered on the façade of a building, with radiating avenues and paths of gravel, lawns, parterres and pools ("bassins") of reflective water enclosed in geometric shapes by stone coping, with fountains and sculpture. The French formal garden style has origins in fifteenth-century Italian Renaissance garden, such as the Villa d'Este, Boboli Gardens, and Villa Lante in Italy. The style was brought to France and expressed in the gardens of the French Renaissance. Some of the earliest formal parterres of clipped evergreens were those laid out at Anet by Claude Mollet, the founder of a dynasty of nurserymen-designers that lasted deep into the 18th century. The Gardens of Versailles are an ultimate example of "jardin à la française", composed of many different distinct gardens, and designed by André Le Nôtre.