Adrian Fisher, il progettista di labirinti più prolifico al mondo con all'attivo oltre 700 creazioni, raccontato dalla BBC.
Dagli specchi alle siepi, un viaggio affascinante attraverso la storia di uno fra i rompicapi più antichi del mondo.
Mazes date back to the ancient times, although the earliest form of maze – the labyrinth – had an important difference from most of those found today. Made famous by the tale of the Minotaur and the Minoan palace in Crete, a labyrinth has only one path leading to the centre. Its purpose wasn't to confuse. It was to lead a walker along a meandering path that encouraged contemplation and serenity.
Although their purpose remains mysterious, labyrinths probably had a spiritual dimension. Later, with the rise of the Church, some scholars think labyrinths became associated with the idea of walking the difficult path of a Christian.
By the Renaissance, nobles were building labyrinths at their palace gardens out of hedges – a way to amuse their visitors and to provide a particular path through their estate. And then mazes began to branch off with various pathway options and dead ends, designed to deliberately confound. Given its landscape tradition, it's no surprise that England became the home to many of those puzzles. The longest surviving in Great Britain, the trapezoidal hedge maze at Hampton Court, was commissioned in 1700; visitors can still get lost in it today.
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