Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq

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Melchior Lorck , portrait by OG de Busbecq (1557)

Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq (* 1522 in Comines near Lille , † October 28, 1592 at Maillot Castle in Saint-Germain-sous-Cailly near Rouen ), also known under the Latinized form of his name Augerius Gislenius Busbequius , was a humanist , diplomat and Botanist .

Life

Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq was born in Flanders in 1520 to the illegitimate child of Georges Ghiselin II, Seigneur de Bousbecque, a knight of an old, respected family, and Catherine Hespiel, who was presumably a maid. His father was very interested in a well-founded education for his son, so that Busbecq was able to study in Leuven , Paris , Venice , Bologna and Padua from the age of 13 thanks to financial support from his father . In Leuven in particular he was under the influence of a humanism trained by Erasmus von Rotterdam . He is said to be fluent in seven languages ​​(Flemish (his mother tongue), Latin, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Slavonian ). In 1540 or 1549 he was recognized as a legal son, which enabled his later career at court.

Just as his father was a diplomat in the service of Emperor Charles V , Busbecq also entered the diplomatic service of the Habsburg monarchy in 1552 . Several times he was sent to the court of Sultan Suleyman I as an envoy to negotiate an armistice. After his return (1562) Busbecq taught in Vienna to the sons of Maximilian II and his daughter Elisabeth . After Elizabeth's marriage to the French King Charles IX. In 1570 he worked as her court marshal in Paris, from 1575 as administrator of Elisabeth's widows' estates in France. In 1582 he became the imperial ambassador to the French court.

When, after Elisabeth's death in autumn 1592, Busbecq received permission from the emperor to visit relatives in his Flemish homeland for half a year, he had to cross Normandy on his way to Belgium, which was troubled by religious and civil wars . Although he was in possession of all the necessary identification documents that guaranteed him diplomatic status, a soldier of the Catholic League captured him near Rouen and looted him. These incidents affected the seventy-year-old so much that he developed a severe fever on which he died on October 28, 1592, eleven days after the attacks, in Saint-Germain-sous-Cailly. His body was buried in the castle chapel there and his heart was sent in a lead capsule to Bousbecque , where it was buried in the family grave.

Diplomatic service

In 1552 he became legation secretary in London , in 1554 he was the companion of Don Pedro, the envoy of the Roman-German king and later Emperor Ferdinand I , who was present at the wedding of Philip of Spain and Mary of England to convey Ferdinand's congratulations.

In the autumn of 1554 Ferdinand I sent Busbecq as ambassador to Suleyman I in Constantinople , so that he could negotiate an armistice with the Ottoman Empire to relieve the weakened Habsburg Empire. Busbecq set out from Vienna on November 23, 1554 and traveled with his entourage in a carriage first to Buda , from there on the Danube to Belgrade , then again by land via Nisch , Sofia and Adrianople to Constantinople. However, when Busbecq arrived in Constantinople on January 20, 1555, he did not find the Sultan in his residence. He learned that Sultan Suleiman was traveling in Asia Minor, so that he had to follow him to the old royal city of Amasya . After a three-week wait, Busbecq followed him via Ankara to finally negotiate a six-month armistice with the sultan on April 7, 1555 in Amasya in an audience. When he finally met the Sultan, he was apparently not in the mood for peace talks and dismissed him with the words "Güzel, Güzel", "beautiful, beautiful".

"Veluti fastidiens, nihil aliud respondit guam Giusel, Giusel: Hoc est, pulcher, pulcher."

"As if contemptuous, he answered nothing but Güzel, Güzel: That means, beautiful, beautiful."

- Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq : 1595

Busbecq was an eyewitness to the Amasya peace agreement between Suleyman I and Shah Tahmasp I of Persia . He realized that the sultan sincerely wanted peace and found hope for his own mission.

“Erga ipsum vero oratorem nullum honoris genus praetermissum; ut nos de veritate pacis minus dubitaremus. "

"No conceivable honor was neglected [to the Persian ambassador] so that we would not have the slightest doubt about the truthfulness of the peace."

- Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq : 1595

Finally he was able to deliver the emperor's message and was given the assurance of a six-month armistice. Busbecq arrived back in Vienna in July 1555, after only a month's journey. In November 1555 he left Vienna again and went back to Constantinople, where he worked as ambassador for six years until 1562. As Busbecq for his part gained more and more trust from Süleyman, Busbecq knew all the more skillfully to use his internal insights into the tense internal political situation of the Ottoman Empire for his negotiation goals with Süleyman. In fact, in 1562, Busbecq managed to negotiate an eight-year truce, despite very poor knowledge of the Turkish language and little diplomatic experience, which, however, ended after Ferdinand's death in 1564.

Epistolae ad Rudolphum II. Leuven 1630

In 1564 he accompanied the Habsburg archdukes to the Spanish court. When Elisabeth in 1570 the French King Charles IX. married, he followed her to Paris as court marshal. After the king's death and Elisabeth's return to Vienna (1575), Busbecq acted as the administrator of her French Wittum , i. H. those areas in France that Habsburg had received as a dowry. In 1582 he became the imperial ambassador of Rudolf II at the French court. In his “Epistolae ad Rudolphum II” he reported on this activity.

Scientific merit

Sultan Suleyman gave Busbecq a few tulip and hyacinth bulbs as well as lilac plants . Busbecq brought all of this home and introduced these plants to Western Europe through the mediation of his friend Charles de l'Écluse (Latin: Carolus Clusius). The name of the tulip (Turkish and Persian Lale) as tulipa goes back to him : apparently he took the name of the turban (Turkish tülbent ), on which flowers were often worn, to be the name of the plant itself. It has been wrongly tried to attribute the introduction of the lily and the horse chestnut in Europe to him. Horse chestnuts, however, were sent to Vienna in 1576 by his successor in Constantinople, David I. Ungnad von Weissenwolff .

During his stay in Constantinople, Busbecq met two people who knew how to speak Crimean Gothic ; the words and sentences he recorded are our only testimonies to this language, which has since disappeared.

Busbecq gained fame among classical philologists when on the way in Ankara he discovered an almost completely preserved copy of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti , the report of accounts of the Roman emperor Augustus , the so-called Monumentum Ancyranum . He sent other inscriptions to Clusius and Justus Lipsius , which were published by Heinrich Smetius and Jan Gruter . No less than 240 manuscripts were donated to the Viennese court library as gifts , including a magnificent manuscript by Pedanios Dioscurides , the most extensive list of ancient plants with around 500 described plant species (the Vienna Dioscorides ). A lion and an ichneumon found their way into the imperial collections in Vienna.

The Turcicae Epistolae

Title page of the Turcicae epistolae , 1595

His four letters submitted travelogue in Latin ( . Legationis turcicae epistolae quattuor .. Paris in 1589 and passim .; first partly published udT: . Itinera Constantinopolitanum et Amasianum et de re militari contra Turcas instituenda Consilium Antwerp 1581/82) describes in detail the daily life ( e.g. caravanserais , clothing habits, keeping pets, gardening, treating women) and the political system of the Ottoman Empire, which, after its rapid expansion and political rise since 1450, now experienced its first internal crises. It is very likely that all four letters were revised by him after his return in 1562 in order to achieve a uniform linguistic style. Busbecq approaches us in his letters as a Renaissance humanist who, with great curiosity, calm and well-meaning, records everyday life and living conditions in a non-European culture. Busbecq's reports are written in simple and elegant Latin and are therefore still used in Latin classes today. His laconic language is evidence of fine humor and cosmopolitanism:

"Illi nostram vestiendi rationem non minus mirabantur quam nos illorum."

"To them our way of dressing seems no less strange than theirs."

- Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq : 1595

Busbecq's impartial curiosity about the alien religion and culture of Islam is impressive, given how little was known about “the Turks” in Europe at that time. His observations on the exchange of diplomatic gifts, for example that precious Koran manuscripts are regarded as the most valuable gift, exist even before today's research in cultural studies.

epitaph

Justus Lipsius , one of the greatest humanists of the time, wrote an epitaph for his friend Busbecq :

Augerius isthic est situs Busbequius.
Quis seine, quem virtutis et prudentiae
habuere carum, gratiâ, ipsi Caesares.
Hunc aula eorum vidit, aula et extera
Asiae tyranni. Quae viri felicitas!
Probavit haec et illa. In omni tempore,
in munere omni Nestorem se praebuit
lingua atque mente. Iam quies eum sibi
et patria haec spondebat; ecce sustulit
viam per ipsam miles incertum an latro.
Sed sustulit, simulque sidus Belgicae,
quod nunc choreas fulget inter astricas.

("Augerius lies here, Busbequius. / The one whose virtue and cleverness / the love and grace achieved the emperor himself. / Her court, the court of distant ones too / As rulers of Asia. What luck for a man! / He proved himself here as there. At all times / in all service he proved himself to be Nestor / in language and spirit. Already he had assured himself / and him the peace of his home; see, because of them he / was torn from his path; whether from mercenary or robber hand is uncertain. / But Belgium's star was also raptured, / it now shines brightly in the celestial dance. ")

Honors

The plant genera Busbeckea Mart is named after him . from the nightshade family (Solanaceae) and Ogiera Cass. from the sunflower family (Asteraceae).

In 1960, Dutch tulip growers sponsored a stagecoach trip from Istanbul to Rotterdam in honor of Busbecq . 400 years after the spring of 1560 , the team, which started on March 30th in the presence of 300,000 people in Istanbul, repeated the journey and crossed Greece, Yugoslavia, Austria and Germany. The contemporary press reported in Belgrade that the carriage had been seen by half a million people in the city. Until the scheduled arrival in Rotterdam on May 6th, depending on the terrain, we drove in two or four horses ; 9 horses were available for this. A total of 18 people were on the carriage and in the escort.

Fonts

  • Itinera Constantinopolitanum et Amasianum from Augerio Gislenio Busbequio ad Solimannum Turcarum Imperatorem CM oratore confecta. Eivsdem Bvsbeqvii de re militari contra Turcam instituenda consilium. Plantin , Antwerp 1581; Altera editio 1582, (online) at Google Books . (partial publication of the Legationis Turcicae epistolae quattuor )
    • Avgerii Gislenii Busbequii D. Legationis Turcicae epistolae quattuor. Qvarum priores dvae ante aliquot annos in lucem prodierunt sub nomine Itinerum Constantinopolitani & Amasiani. Adiectae sunt dvae alterae. Eiusdem de re militari contra Turcam instituenda consilium. Plantin, Paris 1589; (online) in the Munich digitization center ; u. ö.
    • Avgerii Gislenii Busbequii D. Legationis Turcicae epistolae quattuor. Qvarum priores dvae ante aliquot annos in lucem prodierunt sub nomine Itinerum Constantinopolitani & Amasiani. Adiectae sunt dvae alterae. Eiusdem de re militari contra Turcam instituenda consilium. Accedit Solimani Turcarum Imper. Legatio ad Ferdinandum Rome. Caes. anno MDLXX. Francofurtum missam; cvivs apud Busbeqvivm mentio. Typis Wechelianis, apud Claudium Marnium, & haeredes Ioan. Aubrij, Hanoviae 1605, (online) at Google Books .
      • Contemporary translation:
        • Ambassades et voyages en Turquie et Amasie de Mr Busbequius: Nouvellement traduites en François par SG Et diuisées en quatre Liures. Chez Pierre David, Paris 1646, (online) ; (second online copy) , both on Google Books .
      • Current translations:
        • Heinrich Zimmerer: Augier Ghiselin von Busbeck, four Turkish missions. 1554. First letter. Festival of the Kgl. Humanistic grammar school Ludwigshafen am Rhein for the 50th anniversary of the community Ludwigshafen am Rhein. Supplement to the annual report of the Kgl. Gymnasium for the school year 1902/03, (online) . - (translation of the first letter)
        • Ogier Ghiselin von Busbeck: Four letters from Turkey. Translated from Latin, prefaced and annotated by Wolfram von den Steinen . Verlag der philosophischen Akademie, Erlangen 1926 (Der Weltkreis, Volume 2), (229 pages, with 20 reproductions of contemporary woodcuts and copperplate [in the text and on panels]).
        • The Turkish letters of Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, imperial ambassador at Constantinople 1554–1562. Translated from the Latin of the Elzevir edition of 1663 by Edward Seymour Forster. Oxford 1927; Reprint 1968; further reprint: The Turkish letters of Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq. Translated by Edward Seymour Forster. With a foreword by Karl A. Roider. The Louisiana State University Press 2005, (online) at Google Books .
        • Ogier Ghiselin van Boesbeek: Four letters over het gezantschap naar Turkije. Hilversum 1994, ISBN 90-6550-007-3 .
        • Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq: Les lettres turques. Traduction du latin et annotées par Dominique Arrighi. Champion, Paris 2010 ( Champion classiques, Littérature 14), ISBN 978-2-7453-2038-4 .
        • Écritures de l'ambassade. Les Lettres turques d'Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq. Traduction Dominique Arrighi. Champion, Paris 2011 ( Bibliothèque littéraire de la Renaissance Sér. 4, 84), ISBN 978-2-7453-2205-0 .
  • Bartelameus de christian overwinnaar , Paris 1595.
  • A. Gislenii Busbeqvii omnia quae extant . Ex officina Elzeviriana, Lugduni Batavorum 1633, (online) ; (second online copy) on Google Books .
  • Omnia, quae extant, opera (Basel: Jo. Brandmüller 1740). Reprinted with an introduction by Rudolf Neck [p. III-XVIII]. Graz 1968 [according to Hermann Wiegand (see below, p. 15, note 6), this text edition is philologically questionable due to its flawedness].
  • Omnia, quae extant ... Praemissa est vita auctoris. Summa cum fide ac diligentia denuo recognita et aucta locupletissimo indice. Oxford 1771 (12, 556, 24 pp.). - Reprint: Gale ECCO Print Editions, ISBN 978-1-170-73750-7 .
    • Legationis Turcicae epistolae quatuor (pp. 1–373)
      • Epistola I [Vienna Austriae, calendar. Septembris 1554] (pp. 1-107).
      • Epistola II [Constantinopolis, pridie Idus Iul. 1555] (pp. 108-127).
      • Epistola III [Constantinopoli, Calendis Junii 1560] (pp. 127-261).
      • Epistola IV [Francofordiae, December 16, 1562] (pp. 262-373).
    • Exclamatio, sive de re militari contra Turcam instituenda consilium (pp. 374-428).
    • Soli Manni Turcarum imperatoris legatio ad Ferdinandum Roman Caesarem anno 1562 [ Relatio immersive sermo legati pacifici, Ebraimi Strotschenii, a Solymanno Turcarum imperatore ex Constantinopoli ad Christianorum Caesarem Ferdinandum eius nominis primum Destinati, apud Francofurtum Moerii coram statibus imperil ibid praesentibus lingua Sclavonica recitatus, anno MDLXII, Novembris 27 ] (pp. 429-433).
    • Copy of sive copia literarum creditoriarum eidem legato in causa induciarum octennalium ad Romanum imperium a Turcicarum imperatore datarum [anno magni et venerandi nostri Pophetae DCCCCLXIX, die vero primo Septembris] (pp. 433–441).
    • Nomina et cognomina tum Turcici legati, tum eorum, qui Constantinopoli et Buda ipsum deducentes, una cum eo Francofurtum ingressi sunt (p. 442).
    • Augerii Gisleni Busbequii, Caesaris apud regem Gallorum legati, epistolae [LIII] ad Rudolphum II. Imperatorem, e bibliotheca Jo. Bapt. Houwaert JC Patricii Bruxellensis, anno MDLXXXII et sequentibus Parisiis scriptae (pp. 443–556)
    • Index in Busbequii epistolas de itineribus Turcico et Amasiano (24 pp.).

literature

  • Victor von Kraus:  Busbeck, Angerius Ghislain von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, pp. 633-635.
  • Ignace Dalle: Un européen chez les Turcs. Auger Ghiselin de Busbecq 1521–1591 . Paris 2008.
  • Charles Thornton Forster, Francis Henry Blackburne Daniell (eds.): The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq . London 1881.
  • Arend H. Huussen: Het Leven van Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq. En het verhaal van zijn avonturen as keizerlijk gezant in Turkije 1554–1562. Leiden 1949.
  • Maria Petz-Grabenbauer: The relationship between Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecqs (Bousbecque) [Augerius Gislenius Busbequius] and Carolus Clusius Charles de l'É (s) cluse and their influence on the first botanical gardens in Vienna. In: Ingrid Kästner u. a. (Ed.): Exploring, collecting, noting and communicating - science in the luggage of traders, diplomats and missionaries. Shaker Verlag , Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8440-2725-9 , pp. 177-204.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq: Legationis Turcicae Epistolae quatuor. Epistola great. 1595, p. 75 , accessed December 5, 2015 (Latin).
  2. ^ Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq: Legationis Turcicae Epistolae quatuor. Epistola great. Frankfurt am Main 1595, p. 79 ( uni-mannheim.de accessed December 7, 2015).
  3. ^ Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq: Epistolae ad Rudolphum II. Imperatori. Leuven 1630 ( online , accessed December 8, 2015).
  4. ↑ Anna Pavord, The Tulip. London, Bloomsbury 1999, 54
  5. ^ Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq: Legationis Turcicae Epistolae quatuor. Epistola great. 1595, p. 77 , accessed December 5, 2015 (Latin).
  6. ↑ Eckhard Leuschner, Thomas Wünsch (ed.): The image of the enemy. Construction of antagonisms and cultural transfer in the age of the Turkish wars . 1st edition. Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-7861-2684-3 .
  7. ↑ Tim Stanley: Ottoman gift exchange: Royal give and take. In: Linda Komaroff. Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts (Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art) . Yale Univ Press, New Haven, CT 2011, ISBN 978-0-300-17110-5 , pp. 149-170 .
  8. ↑ Translation by user: HajjiBaba based on the text reproduced here, source unknown.
  9. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .
  10. ^ The Carriage Journal , Volume 8 (1970), Number 3, Winter 1970, The Carriage Association of America, 1970, pp. 132-134
  11. ↑ See also the didactic literature: Jürgen Behrens (Hrsg.): Briefe aus der Turkey. The envoy Ogier de Busbecq in the realm of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (Studio. Small Latin texts for entertainment, reflection and reading, Volume 7). CC Buchner, Bamberg 1998 (32 pages, school selection), ISBN 3-7661-5727-2 ; Josef Rabl : On the trail of the flower from the Orient. A basic Latin course goes to the Netherlands and deals with the cultural history of the tulip. In: Latin and Greek in Berlin and Brandenburg. Vol. 44, No. 3 (2000), pp. 103-105. Hermann Wiegand : Imago Turcae. The Turkish image of the early modern times in Latin lessons in upper school. In: The ancient language teaching. Vol. 36, Heft 6 (1993), pp. 12–31, esp. 19–22 (on Busbecq's style and representation intention) and pp. 28–31 (7 Latin text sections with vocabulary information).
personal data
SURNAME Busbecq, Ogier Ghislain de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH 1522
PLACE OF BIRTH Comines
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1592
Place of death Saint-Germain-sous-Cailly near Rouen