Le Nôtre, André (1613-1700)

French landscape gardener, often considered the greatest designer of formal gardens and parks of the baroque period. He created the gardens at Versailles 1662-90 and the Tuileries, Paris. His grandiose scheme for Versailles complemented Le Vau's original design for the palace facade, extending its formal symmetry into the surrounding countryside with vast parterres (gardens having beds and paths arranged to form a pattern), radiating avenues, and unbroken vistas.

His earlier work at Vaux-le-Vicomte, outside Paris, 1657-61, anticipates the Versailles plan, but on a smaller scale. He also laid out the gardens of Chantilly, St Cloud, the Trianon, and St Germain, all conceived as vast settings for the formalized summer entertainments of the court.