Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Medicinal and Sacred Drugs
- Part III Divine Blood for Sale
- Appendix I ‘Rariteiten te koop’
- Appendix II Family and business network of Joannes Six van Chandelier
- Bibliography
- General index
- Index of poems by Joannes Six van Chandelier
- Plate Section
7 - Drugs as Sacred Offerings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Medicinal and Sacred Drugs
- Part III Divine Blood for Sale
- Appendix I ‘Rariteiten te koop’
- Appendix II Family and business network of Joannes Six van Chandelier
- Bibliography
- General index
- Index of poems by Joannes Six van Chandelier
- Plate Section
Summary
Abstract
In this chapter I discuss ceremonial uses of drugs in the poetry of Joannes Six van Chandelier. I focus on drugs as holy offerings – both in the literal and figurative senses – in Joyous Entries by political leaders into cities. I discuss two groups of texts: a series of praise poems Six wrote to Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, on the Treaty of Munster (1648), in which Six presents the antidote theriac as an offering and a source of inspiration; and a series of poems that Six wrote on the Joyous Entry of Queen Mariana and King Philip IV to Madrid in 1649. Here, incense and olive oil are presented as sacraments for the royals. I show how Six associates the alleged apotheosising power of drugs with idolatry and pride.
Keywords: Joyous Entry, apotheosis, theriac, olive oil, Philip IV and Mariana of Spain, emotions
Incense and myrrh from Saba, once used by pagans as sacrifices to their gods, served here as incense offerings to the goddess of France.
– Joost van den VondelA Dutch Golden Age
Colours and fragrances occupy a large place in the early modern Royal Entry, also known as a Triumphal or Joyous Entry. We see this in the development of Orange propaganda in the Republic of the mid-seventeenth century. Art in the Netherlands was influenced by the new court culture that Frederick Henry had become acquainted with in France. A culmination of this baroque style can be found in the mythological-allegorical decor in the Oranjezaal of Huis ten Bosch, designed by Frederick Henry’s widow, Amalia of Solms. She was inspired by similar series that Rubens had made for various royal courts in Europe. The paintings depict a Royal Entry, in which the Prince of Orange is celebrated as a Prince of Peace. The political background to the decor is the Peace of Munster, the end of the 80-year struggle for freedom from Spain (1568–1648), to which Frederick Henry made a major contribution. The largest painting in the Oranjezaal, ‘Triumph of Frederick Henry’ (1651), by Jacob Jordaens, can be seen as a rebirth of the Roman imperial cult, where the Roman Triumph played an important role (Plate 8).
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- Information
- Dangerous DrugsThe Self-Presentation of the Merchant-Poet Joannes Six van Chandelier (1620–1695), pp. 227 - 260Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020