Every now and then when you're working through a primary source, you come across something which is so strange and surprising that you find yourself completely distracted from your original focus. So, here I was today, minding my own business and trawling through Thomas Coryat's Crudities (an oddly-named 1611 travel account of the author's journeys through Europe), when I come across this startling image, in the midst of his description of the palace at Heidelberg:
My first thought was "that's a wine barrel". My second thought was "don't be ridiculous". But, no, as Coryat earnestly assured me, it was "nothing but a vessell full of wine". Coryat was somewhat taken by the barrel, insisting that had it been around at the time of the likes of Herodotus, then that historian would have recorded it alongside the Colossus of Rhodes and the hanging gardens of Babylon as one of the wonders of the ancient world. I then hastily googled "giant wine barrel Heidelberg" and discovered that, in fact, a giant wine barrel still inhabits the cellars of Heidelberg Castle, though it is the fourth of a series of such creations, of which Coryat's was the first. It now has a dance floor on top of it, but contains no wine.
This was not, however, the case in Coryat's day. He goes onto explain that, should an enterprising traveller desire a refreshing glass of Rhenish wine, they needed only to ascend by a ladder to the top of the barrel, where a bung could be opened and "a prety instrument of some foote and halfe long" lowered down to the level of the wine within and then poured into a glass. You will note that in the image above a figure is standing, cutting into the block of text, a glass of wine in hand. Coryat states that this is a representation of himself, but one suspects from a later comment that he may not have struck quite such an upstanding and sober pose: he warns any gentle readers who may follow in his footsteps to "drink moderately, and not so much as the sociable Germans will perswade thee unto". The consequence, he notes, could be that "such a giddiness will benumme thy braine, that thou wilt scarce finde the direct way downe from the steepe ladder without a dangerous precipitation."
Coryat concludes his four-page description of the Johann-Casimir-Fass (the barrel) with a copy of "certaine Latin verses made by a learned German in praise of the barrel". So, there you have it. Neo-Latin poetry in praise of what was essentially the early modern, alcoholic equivalent of Pimp That Snack.
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See Thomas Coryat[e], Coryat's Crudities, Hastily gobled up in five Moneths travells in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia commonly called the Orisons country, Helvetia alias Switzerland, some parts of high Germany and the Nether lands (London, printed by W.S., 1611).
This was not, however, the case in Coryat's day. He goes onto explain that, should an enterprising traveller desire a refreshing glass of Rhenish wine, they needed only to ascend by a ladder to the top of the barrel, where a bung could be opened and "a prety instrument of some foote and halfe long" lowered down to the level of the wine within and then poured into a glass. You will note that in the image above a figure is standing, cutting into the block of text, a glass of wine in hand. Coryat states that this is a representation of himself, but one suspects from a later comment that he may not have struck quite such an upstanding and sober pose: he warns any gentle readers who may follow in his footsteps to "drink moderately, and not so much as the sociable Germans will perswade thee unto". The consequence, he notes, could be that "such a giddiness will benumme thy braine, that thou wilt scarce finde the direct way downe from the steepe ladder without a dangerous precipitation."
Coryat concludes his four-page description of the Johann-Casimir-Fass (the barrel) with a copy of "certaine Latin verses made by a learned German in praise of the barrel". So, there you have it. Neo-Latin poetry in praise of what was essentially the early modern, alcoholic equivalent of Pimp That Snack.
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See Thomas Coryat[e], Coryat's Crudities, Hastily gobled up in five Moneths travells in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia commonly called the Orisons country, Helvetia alias Switzerland, some parts of high Germany and the Nether lands (London, printed by W.S., 1611).