Catalogue for the exhibition staged by the Milan Municipality in Palazzo Dugnani, Milan, from 23 April to 16 May 1986. The first history of Milan's parks from 1782 to 1945 and its green systems, discussed in terms of the city's private gardens with reference to the history of the concept of the tended garden in modern Europe. All this is verified through the way that garden history has been expressed in the media (through books, prints, loose sheets, and magazines), presented here with a text accompanied by some 500 illustrations, many of which unpublished, or enlarged to enable a proper study of their details. CONTENTS: The groundwork of the modern garden 1288 to 1650. The era of formal French-style public gardens 1651-1709. The era of the English landscape garden 1710-1781. The era of the public garden 1782-1857. The era of public greenspace 1857-1921. Between the wars 1922-1944. APPENDIX 1: comparative study of the various botanical templates considered ideal for analyzing treatise for garden planning and creation from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. APPENDIX 2: Comparative study of the various botanical templates for garden creation from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century for spring, summer and autumn gardens. APPENDIX 3: Comparative study of the botanical templates considered ideal for garden creation as published in the Milanese press from 1750 to 1850. BIBLIOGRAPHY. INDEX.