History of the Tulip
Tulips were first brought to Europe by a Flemish diplomat, Augier (Ogier) Ghislain de Busbecq (1522-1591)
Born in 1522 in Comines, at the time part of the realm of Charles the Fifth of Spain, Ogier was an excellent student, went to various European universities and was fluent in seven languages.
Ferdinand of Austria, king of Bohemia and Hungary and brother to Charles V, sent him to Constantinople as ambassador to the awe-inspiring Sultan Suleiman II the Magnificent (1494-1566). His mission was to obtain a truce, as the christian world felt threatened. The Ottoman empire was at the peak of its power, covering North Africa, Syria, Persia, Greece, the Balkans, Hungary up to the gates of Vienna where in 1529 it was stopped by the armies of Charles V.
In 1554 Busbecq duly went to Vienna and from there to Constantinople. Sultan Suleiman was in Anatolia at the time so Busbecq joined him there and returned bearing a six-month truce.
Early in 1556 Ferdinand entrusted him with a new mission and Busbecq went back to Turkey, only returning in 1562 with a treaty garanteeing an eight year truce and giving Hungary back to Ferdinand.
A brilliant diplomat, botanist and naturalist, Busbecq was interested in everything he saw.
During his first stay in Anatolia in 1554, he discovered flowering tulips and acquired some bulbs he gave to the imperial gardens in Vienna.
Tulips were the Sultan's favourite flower and get their name from the Turkish tülbend (turban) which they resemble.
The botanist and scientist Charles de l'Escluse - Carolus Clusius (Arras 1526-Leyde 1609) was king Ferdinand's doctor and in charge fo the imperial gardens in Vienna from 1573 to 1592. He noticed the tulips and charmed by the flower's beauty, started a collection.
Appointed to Leyde to the botany chair, he brought his collection of tulips to Holland with him.
L'Escluse created one of Europe's first botanical gardens, Hortus Botanicus in Leyde and is considered the world's first mycologist and the founder of horticulture.
Tulips became a symbol of wealth, and appear in paintings of flowers and on Delftware.
Tulip mania is the name given to the inordinate rise and subsequent collapse of tulip bulb prices in the Northern United Provinces in the middle of the XVIIth century.
At the height of tulip mania, in february 1637, a bulb was being traded for a price equal to twenty times the annual wages of a specialised worker.
Fortunes were made and lost with tulips. In 1637 the government stepped in and banned such transactions. Some historians have called this the first ever speculative "bubble".