During his reign councils were set up to judge new varieties and to give the best ones names, among them 'Increaser of Joy', 'Slim One of the Rose Garden', 'Star of Felicity', 'Light of the Mind'. Prizes were awarded and poems written to celebrate the beauty of the favourites. With the arrival of the tulip in Europe in the 1550s and 1560s, we are on more familiar ground. Pavord describes its evolution as a garden flower in Britain and France and in Holland, where the tulip has played a key part in the economy for over 350 years. She has delved into original sources, be they in Latin, French, or Dutch, and she has consulted obscure manuscripts which throw light on the story.
All human life seems to be here.
Tulipomania', which engulfed Holland in the 1630s, is a well-known story of greed followed by ruin, of hubris followed by nemesis. The Dutch burghers lost their heads for love of rare tulips. Single bulbs were bought for thousands of guilders, the equivalent of fifteen years' wages for an Amsterdam bricklayer, or the price of a house in a fashionable part of the city. Inevitably, the market crashed in a welter of bankruptcies and lawsuits. Less well known is a similar episode of tulip madness in France.