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Flowers of Fealty: Commemoration of the Christening of Elisabeth of Hesse (1598)
Commemorative manuscript featuring illustrations of pageants, costumes, and fireworks, later further illustrated by a separate artist, with floral motifs.
Dilich prefaces his commemoration with an introductory text, humbly comparing himself to the Greek philosopher Diogenes, who lived in a barrel and lazily looked on as the great statesmen of Athens erected feats of engineering and governed the polis. According to the Library of Congress, this aesthetic interloper “decorated all the free space left in the manuscript (i.e., on empty pages as well as along the margins) with remarkable watercolor paintings of common and exotic flowers such as the tulip, viola, and peony.” There are textual pastiches aplenty, such as a dialogue staged between the shepherds from Virgil’s eclogues, who dwell in the Arcadia of old, which recounts the knightly games held during the christening and couples floral imagery with martial themes.
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