"Turkey and the Netherlands united by the Tulip" - A Spring Blossom’s Curious History - by Rosemarie Fruehauf
You can be glad to get them for a couple of bucks on almost every corner, but tulips were not always that cheap and easy to get. This innocent spring flower looks back on a long and exciting career.Historians of today hold that the tulip emerged as a wild growing plant thousands of years ago spread in a “corridor” which stretches along the 40º latitude between Northern China and Southern Europe. The first peak of the tulip fascination took place on the court of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566), the Ottoman Emperor residing in Constantinople, today’s Istanbul. His palace, the Seraglio, was called “Palace of Tulips and Tears” and was decorated with countless tulips. Tiles on the walls, vases, and the textile design of his robe were showing tulips, even his emblem and weapons.
Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, the ambassador of the Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I at the court of Suleiman, mentioned the Turkish tulip cultivation in a 1555 letter to Vienna. He also supplied Viennese botanist Carolus Clusius (1526-1609) with seeds. Both became the key figures in bringing the tulip to Europe. Clusius brought his collection to Leyden in the Netherlands, to which he fled due to religious persecution. As an expert for medical herbs and hired for research about them, Clusius grew tulips as his personal hobby.
And the rest is history - today the Netherlands are associated with the tulip like no other country and—four centuries after the tulip-induced economical crisis—hold about 80 percent of the world’s tulip production.
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