The Italian Renaissance garden was a new style of garden which emerged in the late 15th century at villas in Rome and Florence, inspired by classical ideals of order and beauty, and intended for the pleasure of the view of the garden and the landscape beyond, for contemplation, and for the enjoyment of the sights, sounds and smells of the garden itself.

In the late Italian Renaissance, the gardens became larger, grander and more symmetrical, and were filled with fountains, statues, grottoes, water organs and other features designed to delight their owners and amuse and impress visitors. The style was imitated throughout Europe, influencing the gardens of the French Renaissance, the English knot garden, and the French formal garden style developed in the 17th century.

Prior to the Italian Renaissance, Italian medieval gardens were enclosed by walls, and were mostly devoted to growing vegetables, fruits and medicinal herbs, as well as, in the case of monastic gardens, for silent meditation and prayer. The Italian Renaissance garden broke down the wall between the garden, the house, and the landscape outside.

Beginning in the early modern period translations of Classical works began to circulate among European society, and by the mid-16th century showed influences of Francesco di Giorgio Martini and Sebastiano Serlio, being regarded more like works of art themselves.

The Italian Renaissance garden, like Renaissance art and architecture, emerged from the rediscovery by Renaissance scholars of classical Roman models. They were inspired by the descriptions of ancient Roman gardens given by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, by the letters of Pliny the Younger, by Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia, and in Rerum Rusticanum by Varro, all of which gave detailed and lyrical description of the gardens of Roman villas.

Pliny the Younger described his life at his villa at Laurentum: "a good life and a genuine one, which is happy and honourable, more rewarding than any 'business' can be. You should take the first opportunity to leave the din, the futile bustle and useless occupations of the city and devote yourself to literature or to leisure." The purpose of a garden, according to Pliny, was otium, which could be translated as seclusion, serenity, or relaxation, which was the opposite of the idea of negotium that often classified busy urban life. A garden was a place to think, relax, and escape.

Pliny described shaded paths bordered with hedges, ornamental parterres, fountains, and trees and bushes trimmed to geometric or fantastic shapes, all features which would become part of the future Renaissance garden.

The first Renaissance text to include garden design was De re aedificatoria (The Ten Books of Architecture), by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472). He drew upon the architectural principles of Vitruvius, and used quotations from Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger to describe what a garden should look like and how it should be used. He argued that a villa should both be looked at and a place to look from; that the house should be placed above the garden, where it could be seen and the owner could look down into the garden.