Ji Cheng's great work on garden design, the 'Yuanye'(Craft of garden), written in 1631 and originally published in 1634 is the first surviving manual on landscape gardening in the Chinese tradition. This study aims at investigating not only Ji Cheng's life, achievements companionship and design activities, but also the xylographic copies, literary style, and framework of Yuanye in their historical context in order to provide the bases for further study, Ji Cheng was exellent in poetry and painting. And he constructed Dongdiyuan in Changzhou around 1623, Wuyuan in Yiaheng in 1631, and Yingyuan in Yangzhou around 1634 But no poems, paintings, and gardens designed by hi shill exist Therefore his design phi philosophy is able to be interpreted only by his work, Yuanye. After publishing, Yuanye fell into obscurity for several centuries in Chlna. It was redescovered and reprinted for the first time in 1931. Yuanye is composed of prefaces and main text The main text is divided into 'the Theory of Construction' and 'on Gardens', and the latter also into 10 sections. In this text Ji Cheng explains the aesthetic principles underlying garden design and the appropriate emotional response to various efftcts Especially, he emphasizes the importance of basin the garden design on the taxi ting nature and features of landscape and making use of natural scenery. The literary style of the book is highly mannered, and there are so many poetic descriptions and Ji Cheng's native Jiangsu dialects. So the translation of the original text is very difficult After this, the major design concepts of Ji Cheng's landscape gardening theory and whole network of these concepts have to be studied.