Among the first parks in the Habsburg's monarchy, and one of the first in the world, Maksimir Park got its name from the man who conceived it in the first place, Maksimilijan Vrhovec who, after being raised to the see of Zagreb in 1787, decided to transform a broad extent of forest together with surrounding ploughed fields and meadows into a great landscape garden; this was finally brought to fruition in 1794, after seven years of work.
Today?s Maksimir is one of Zagreb people?s favourite haunts; it covers 316 hectares, and in terms of features and feeling it is part of the Biedermeier ethos. Its Enlightenment-cum-Romantic spirit is expressed in the polarity of work, the general good of progress and art, poetry and painting, creating an idealised version of nature. The position of the park, which links the foothills of the Mt Medvednica in the north and spreads down to the plain towards the Sava River in the south gives it an illusion of boundless extent. The constant variations of the view, the hills, meadows, forests and lakes, the planting of clumps of trees on distant vistas outside the actual park all give Maksimir the feeling of some vast English landscape garden.
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