Tulipomania - Mike Dash [106]
The word tulip in English According to Hall, Book of the Tulip, p. 17, it first appeared in Lyte’s translation of Florum et Coronarium Odoratumque Nonnularum, by Clusius’s friend Rembert Dodoens, originally published in Antwerp in 1568.
Conrad Gesner Hall, Book of the Tulip, p. 39; Segal, Tulips Portrayed, p. 3; Krelage, Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland, pp. 15–16; Fischer, Conrad Gesner. For the frog story, see Jan Bondeson, “Prodigious Vomiting,” in A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997). Catalogus Plantarum, incidentally, was not published until two centuries after Gesner’s death; his description of the tulip first appeared in an appendix he added to a book written by his friend Valerius Gordus, which was published in 1561.
“In the month of April …” Quoted in Hall, Book of the Tulip, p. 39.
Tulipa turcarum Although a species of tulip named in Gesner’s honor was long thought to be that discovered at Augsberg, it would appear, according to Murray, “Introduction of the Tulip,” p. 19, that the species in Herwart’s garden was probably T. suavenolens and not T. gesneriana at all.
Tulip seen in Italy by Johann Kentmann Segal, Tulips Portrayed, pp. 3, 21 n6. Kentmann labeled this flower T. turcica, but it appears to have been an example of the species T. sylvestris.
The Fugger gardens Ehrenberg, Grosse Vermögen, p. 38. See also Polnitz, Die Fugger. Anton Fugger, the son of the founder of the Fugger empire, offered employment to both Gesner and Clusius; neither, owing perhaps to religious scruples (since the Fuggers bankrolled much of the Counter-Reformation), accepted.
Early tulips in England and Europe Hall, Book of the Tulip, p. 40; Jacob, Tulips, p. 3; Blunt, Tulipomania, pp. 10–11.
Garret and Gerrard Blunt, Tulipomania, pp. 10–11; Pavord, Tulip, pp. 104–05.
Chapter 5. Clusius
Easily the most comprehensive biography of Clusius is that published by F. W. T. Hunger in the two volumes of Charles d’Ecluse (Carolus Clusius), Nederlandsch Kruidkundige, 1526–1609 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1927, 1943), from which much of the material in this chapter is drawn. A popular biography by Johan Theunisz, Carolus Clusius: Het Merkwaardige Leven van een Pionier der Wetenschap (Amsterdam: P. N. Van Kampen & Zoon, 1939) adds a few details, mainly to elaborate on the botanist’s early life. Clusius’s scattered work on the tulip—which, it has to be stressed, was never remotely central to his botanical work as a whole—has fortunately been summarized, in English, by W. van Dijk, A Treatise on Tulips by Carolus Clusius of Arras (Haarlem: Enschedé, 1951).
Anecdote of the Flemish merchant This story was originally recorded by Clusius himself and is mentioned in Dijk, Treatise on Tulips, p. 8.
Thus it was in the spring of 1563 This part of the account is speculation on my part, but it does strike me as unlikely, if the merchant thought the tulip bulbs were onions, that anyone would have realized what they really were until they had flowered.
Execution of an uncle This was Mathieu d’Ecluse, who was actually burned in April 1567 during the duke of Alba’s attempts to put down Protestantism in the Habsburg Netherlands. See Hunger, Charles d’Ecluse, vol. 1, p. 97.
Extent of Clusius’s correspondence The estimate of four thousand letters is based on a calculation by Hunger in ibid., vol. 1, p. 98.
Clusius on the tulip Clusius first mentioned the flower in an appendix to his book on the flora of Spain, Historia Stirpium per Hispanias Observatorum, published in 1576 (pp. 510–15), even though the flower was not native to that country. This does perhaps suggest that it was while he