Monrepos

Trädgården och biblioteket i Viborg

210 x 255 mm, hard cover
160 pages
Writer Rainer Knapas
Layout Ville Karppanen
Swedish
ISBN 978-952-7611-24-1
October 2026
42 €

The celebrated landscape garden of Monrepos in Vyborg (Viipuri), long known as the “Arcadia of the North”, was already a noted tourist destination in the 19th century. Uniting the grandeur of Finnish nature with continental horticultural refinement, it was conceived by the Enlightenment writer and courtier Ludwig Heinrich Nicolay (1737–1820) in collaboration with leading architects and artists of his time. At Monrepos, Nicolay assembled a remarkable collection of books and artworks, unparalleled in Finland. The estate became a true Gesamtkunstwerk – a total work of art that embodied his life’s intellectual and artistic vision, shaped by the ideas and aesthetics of the 18th century. This book presents Nicolay’s life and literary work while offering new perspectives on the design of Monrepos, richly illustrated with a wealth of historical visual material. Among its key themes is the dialogue between garden design and the visual arts that shaped 18th-century aesthetics. The author, Rainer Knapas, Phil. Lic., is an art and cultural historian and a leading scholar of Monrepos and its extensive library, now preserved in the collections of the National Library of Finland.