Tulipomania (32 page)

Monstereul’s eulogy
Cited by Segal,
Tulips Portrayed
, p. 4.

Lobelius
The Latinized name of Mathias de l’Obel, whose work on tulips was published in a French herbal of 1581. See Segal,
Tulips Portrayed
, p. 3.

Varieties of tulip
Ibid., p. 4; Murray, “Introduction of the Tulip,” p. 21. These totals exclude Turkish species, which by the eighteenth century numbered more than thirteen hundred by themselves.
Early tulip lovers
Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland
, pp. 23–24; Krelage,
Drie Eeuwen Bloembollenexport
, pp. 6, 17.

The tulip in France
Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland
, p. 29; Munting,
Naauwkeurige Beschryving der Aardgewassen
, pp. 907–11; Garber, “Tulip-mania,” p. 543. Although dealt with by contemporary garden writers, the history of this early French tulip mania is still obscure and would probably repay some original research.

The rose as empress of the garden
Zumthor,
Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland
, p. 49.

The tulip connoisseurs
Stadsbibliotheek, Haarlem, Passe,
Een Cort Verhael van den Tulipanen
, p. 4; Krelage,
Drie Eeuwen Bloembollenexport
, p. 6.

Paulus van Beresteyn
Beresteyn and Hartman,
Genealogie van het Geslacht
, p. 134.

Jacques de Gheyn
Regteren Altena,
Jacques de Gheyn
, vol. 1, pp. 2–3, 14, 38, 40, 59, 66, 69–70, 131–32, 153.

Guillelmo van de Heuvel
Leonhardt,
Het Huis Bartolotti
, pp. 14–15, 39–40; Israel,
Dutch Republic
, p. 348.

The Golden Age
Price,
Culture and Society in the Dutch Republic;
Israel,
Dutch Republic
, pp. 547–91.

Dutch country houses
Schama,
Embarrassment of Riches
, pp. 292–95; Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie
, pp. 7, 27–28.
Jokes in church
Cotterell,
Amsterdam
, p. 119. The usual fine was six stuivers per joke.

Jacob Cats
Schama,
Embarrassment of Riches
, pp. 211, 293, 437.

Lord Offerbeake’s garden
Brereton,
Travels in Holland
, pp. 44–45.

“All these fools want …”
English translation from Segal,
Tulips Portrayed
, p. 16.

Of de Moufe-schans
Hondius,
Dapes Inemptae
. On the true ownership of the Moufe-schans, which is sometimes incorrectly said to have been Hondius’s own home, see
Nieuw Nederlandsch Biographisch Woordenboek
, vol. 8, pp. 812–13.

The prince of Orange’s garden
Brereton,
Travels in Holland
, pp. 34–35.

My discussion of Semper Augustus is based, as all such discussions must be, on the chronicle of Nicolaes Jansz. van Wassenaer. Van Wassenaer, the son of an Amsterdam physician, taught at the Latin School in Haarlem and then in Amsterdam before becoming a professional writer (and part-time physician) after 1612. His chronicle,
Historisch Verhael aller Gedencwaerdiger
Gheschiedenissen
, 5–9 (Amsterdam: Iudocus Hondius and Jan Jansen, 1624–25), which is in general one of the most reliable available, is the principal source of information on the flower.

The passages on the progress of the tulip craze are based as before on the works of Krelage, supplemented by those of Nicolaas Posthumus, “Die speculatie in Tulpen in de Jaren 1636 en 1637,” parts 1–3,
Economisch-Historisch Jaarboek
12 (1926), pp. 3–9; 13 (1927), pp. 1–85; 18 (1934), pp. 229–40; and “The Tulip Mania in Holland in the Years 1636 and 1637,” in W. C. Scoville and J. C. LaForce, eds.,
The Economic Development of Western Europe
, vol. 2 (Lexington, Mass., 1969), and Peter Garber, “Tulipmania,”
Journal of Political Economy
97 (June 1989), pp. 535–60. Information on Dutch gardens of the period is drawn from Paul Zumthor,
Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962), and Simon Schama’s
The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age
(London: Fontana, 1991).

Information on tulip books comes from Segal,
Tulips Portrayed
, and Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland
. The
Hortus Floridus
of Chrispijn van de Passe has been the subject of some research; see Spencer Savage, “The ‘Hortus Floridus’ of Crispijn vande Pas,”
Transactions of the Bibliographic Society
, ser. 2, vol. 4 (1923), pp. 181–206, and Eleanour Rohde,
Crispian Passeus’s “Hortus Floridus”
(London, 1928–29). Savage’s English translation appeared in the 1970s:
Hortus Floridus: The Four Books of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter Flowers, Engraved by Crispin van de Pas
(London: Minerva, c. 1974).

Adriaen Pauw
Israel,
Dutch Republic
, pp. 159, 319, 458–59, 518–19, 522–33; and Boer et al.,
Adriaan Pauw
, pp. 20–27. Today only a small portion of the Heemstede estate can still be seen; the rest has been swallowed up by Haarlem and now forms one of the southernmost suburbs of the city.

Pauw’s mirrored garden
Wassenaer,
Historisch Verhael
, vol. 5, p. 40 and verso. It is possible that the Violetten variety Pauw, mentioned in Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland
, p. 138, was created by him or at least named for him.

Semper Augustus
Wassenaer,
Historisch Verhael
, vol. 5, p. 40 verso and 41; vol. 7, p. 111 and verso; vol. 9, p. 10. See also Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland
, pp. 32–33, 68; Garber, “Tulipmania,” p. 537; Segal,
Tulips Portrayed
, pp. 8–9.

The ownership of Semper Augustus
In recent years several authorities have confidently stated that the owner of Semper Augustus was none other than Adriaen Pauw, but they have not read van Wassenaer’s work carefully. In fact, although the chronicler did see specimens of the flower and did visit the garden at Heemstede, nowhere does he link the two, and the description he gives of Pauw’s single tulip bed makes it unlikely that Semper Augustus—a flower that any connoisseur would have planted in solitary splendor—would have been grown there.

Several unreferenced anecdotes suggest that other Semper Augustus bulbs were sold, but until they can be confirmed in contemporary records I would be reluctant to accept them at face value. Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland
, p. 65n, says that an Amsterdammer sold a Haarlemmer the flower on condition that neither would sell any further Semper Augustus bulbs without notifying the other first. The Amsterdam connoisseur later succumbed to the temptation of 3,000 guilders and a cabinet worth 10,000 guilders for a single bulb. When the Haarlemmer discovered this deception, he in turn sold three bulbs for 30,000 guilders. Similarly Munting, writing some thirty-five years after the mania, quoted an unreferenced bookkeeper’s entry that reads: “Sold to N.N., a Semper Augustus weighing 123 azen, for the sum of 4,600 florins. Above this sum a new and well-made carriage and two dapple gray horses with all accessories to be delivered within two weeks, the money to be paid immediately.” He also alleges a bulb was sold for 5,500 florins at public auction. See Munting,
Naauwkeurige Beschryving
, pp. 907–11.

Balthasar and Daniël de Neufville
Gelder de Neufville, “De Oudste Generatics,” pp. 6–8; Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland
, pp. 129, 140. These varieties bore the corrupted name “de Novil.”

Tulip growers
Hunger,
Charles d’Ecluse
, vol. 1, p. 241; vol. 2, p. 251.

Henrik Pottebacker
Segal,
Tulips Portrayed
, p. 8; Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland
, pp. 127, 138.

Rhizotomi and apothecaries
Hunger,
Charles d’Ecluse
, vol. 1, pp. 303–06; Krelage,
Drie Eeuwen Bloembollenexport
, p. 17. On the unreliability of apothecaries, see Zumthor,
Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland
, pp. 73, 157.

The tulip as aphrodisiac
Segal and Roding,
De Tulp en de Kunst
, p. 22. The contemporary English garden writer John Parkinson mentions the supposed aphrodisiac qualities of the flower in
Paradisus Terrestris
(1629), confessing however: “For force of Venereous quality, I cannot say … not having eaten many.” Quoted in Blunt,
Tulipomania
, pp. 10–11.

Actors in the early tulip trade:
Posthumus, “Die Speculatie in Tulpen” (1927), pp. 11–15.

Gardens outside Haarlem
Temmininck et al.,
Haarlemmerhout 400 Jaar
, pp. 98–99.

Pieter Bol and Barent Cardoes
Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland
, p. 42; Schama,
Embarrassment of Riches
, p. 356. Cardoes died late in 1657 (Haarlem Burial Registers 72, fol. 100), but the business he established was still in existence in the eighteenth century.

Francisco da Costa
Unsurprisingly, da Costa’s business was a very sound one, and it survived the mania and continued until at least 1645. Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland
, pp. 42–43, 55; Krelage, “Het Manuscript over den Tulpenwindhandel,” p. 30.

Bulb exports
Today fully two-thirds of Dutch bulbs are exported, and the largest single producer, Germaco, ships some 35 million bulbs a year overseas.

Emanuel Sweerts
Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland
, p. 25.

Tulip books
The earliest known flower book dates to 1603 and is French. Books portraying only tulips came into existence as the mania developed; the oldest of these dates to about 1635. See Segal and Roding,
De Tulp en de Kunst
, pp. 78–81; Segal,
Tulips Portrayed
, pp. 17–20; Taylor,
Dutch Flower Painting
, pp. 10–12.

Van Swanenburch’s tulip book
This book is now in the Netherlands Economics History Archive in Amsterdam. The notes on prices appear to have been written by the book’s—anonymous—original owner.

Cos’s tulip book
This manuscript, correctly titled
Verzameling van een Meenigte Tulipaanen …
, was made in 1637. (Oddly there do not seem to be any other records of a florist named Cos in the city archives, although Krelage does note the existence of a tulip variety named Kos.) It is now in the Universiteitsbibliotheek at Wageningen.

Tulip nomenclature
Krelage,
Bloemenspeculatie in Nederland
, pp. 33–37, 128.

“If a change in a Tulip is effected …”
Cited by Murray, “Introduction of the Tulip,” p. 24.

Traveling bulb sellers
Pavord,
Tulip
, p. 153.

The social history of the United Provinces during the Golden Age is ably dealt with by A. T. van Deursen,
Plain Lives in a Golden Age: Popular Culture, Religion and Society in Seventeenth Century Holland
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Details of day-to-day life are added by Paul Zumthor,
Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962). Among contemporary authors, the greatest authority was generally reckoned to be Sir William Temple, whose
Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands
did not, unfortunately, appear until 1673, well after the mania. This short book was nevertheless based on the author’s observations during visits dating back to 1652, and as Temple was for some time the English ambassador to the United Provinces and took a keen professional interest in the reasons for Dutch success, his work is far more thoughtful and analytical than the muddled impressions of travelers, as well as being considerably less superficial.

Physical description of the United Provinces
Temple,
Observations
, pp. 95, 113–14; Zumthor,
Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland
, p. 277; Israel,
Dutch Republic
, pp. 1–3, 9–14.

“An universall quagmire …”
The Englishman was the propagandist Owen Felltham, and his work was published when Anglo-Dutch antagonism reached its peak in the middle of the seventeenth century. His views of the Dutch need to be seen in this context. Cited in Schama,
Embarrassment of Riches
, p. 44.

The English ambassador
Temple,
Observations
, pp. 95, 113–14.

The classes of Dutch society
Israel,
Dutch Republic
, pp. 330, 337–53, 630–38; Deursen,
Plain Lives
, pp. 4–8, 13, 32, 47–48, 194; Zumthor,
Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland
, pp. 232–41; Schama,
Embarrassment of Riches
, pp. 19–21, 316, 579–81.

The working day
Deursen,
Plain Lives
, pp. 5, 11; Zumthor,
Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland
, pp. 5–6, 53.

Food
Deursen,
Plain Lives
, pp. 4, 19–20, 82; Schama,
Embarrassment of Riches
, pp. 162–64, 169–70, 230; Zumthor,
Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland
, pp. 67–74; Cotterell,
Amsterdam
, pp. 24, 48; Brereton,
Travels in Holland
, p. 6.

Cleanliness
Deursen,
Plain Lives
, pp. 19, 41; Zumthor,
Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland
, pp. 137–39, 169; Brereton,
Travels in Holland
, p. 68.

Population
Israel,
Dutch Republic
, p. 328.

Baudartius and the pressure of overpopulation
Deursen,
Plain Lives
, pp. 3–4, 8.

Spread of the fashion for gardening in the Netherlands
Cotterell,
Amsterdam
, pp. 88, 131; Brereton,
Travels in Holland
, p. 38; Mundy,
Travels of Peter Mundy
, vol. 4, p. 75; Segal,
Tulips Portrayed
, p. 8; Bulgatz,
Ponzi Schemes
, p. 86.