Edward Godfrey Lawson: Continuum of Classicism, Photographs and Drawings of Italian Renaissance Gardens examines Lawson’s historic role as the first Fellow in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome from 1915 to 1920. During his fellowship, he photographed and documented the iconic gardens of the Italian Renaissance from the 15th and 16th century—creating a trove of metadata for future scholarship. As a Cornell professor, he promulgated the principles of Renaissance and Beaux-Arts classicism for nearly twenty years, and mentored a generation of students and future practitioners. Despite Lawson’s significant contributions to American landscape architecture, his work was eventually obscured by the changing professional and societal trends that de-emphasized classicism after the Second World War. This 125 page monograph with over 75 color and B+W images documents Lawson’s historic legacy—grafting the idioms of Italian Renaissance garden design into the American landscape
