Convents and/or Monasteries in the Colonial Brazilian Scenery: contribution to the understanding of its open spaces or its fences

Abstract

In face of the difficulty to understand the private green areas in the selected Brazilian cities in the colonial period, we have prioritized the understanding of monastic fences. The so-called fences were open spaces that made part of the convents and/or monasteries structure and accomplished the functions of food production and religious recreation. On the whole of the religious architecture, yards, gardens, orchards, vegetable gardens and woods were special places, seen as: locus amoenus, hortus conclusos, hortuns deliciarum and Paradise. Nowadays, even if there are only fragments of these places, it is important to protect them as part of built complexes: architectural, urban and scenic.