Enclosed and hidden gardens have always appealed to me as spaces sheltered from the stormy world. But a bunker alone is not enough; a refuge must be uplifting and play to the senses. Where better to ...

Last month, my wife Mary and I walked through the chapter house of the 12th-century Notre-Dame-de-Pontaut monastery. From there we made our way to the Saint-Guilhem Cloister arcade, which also dates ...

As I headed uptown on the A train, bound for The Cloisters, I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew that The Cloisters - a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art - contained reconstructed medieval ...

Centuries before Americans took to gardening as a hobby, St. Benedict, the great founder of Western monasticism, made gardens important in his monasteries. Most flowers, plants and herbs were for ...

Purchase this and other timeless New Criterion essays in our hard-copy reprint series. Camel from the Church of San Baudelio de Berlanga, first half 12th century (possibly 1129–34), Fresco transferred ...