Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq

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

Life

Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq comes 1520 in Flanders as a child of an illegitimate connection between Georges Ghiselin II, Seigneur de Bousbecque, a knight from an old, respected family, and Catherine Hespiel, which was probably a maid, to the world. His father has so Busbecq can study by paternal financial support in Leuven, Paris, Venice, Bologna and Padua great interest in a sound education of his son from the age of 13. Especially in lions he is very much in influence of a trained Erasmus of Rotterdam humanism. 1540 or 1549 carried his recognition as the legitimate son, raising his later career is possible at court.

Like his father, a diplomat in the service of Emperor Charles V, he remained connected until his death the Habsburgs. Thus he became in 1552 secretary of legation in London. 1554 he has been a companion of Don Pedro, the envoy of the Roman-German king and later emperor Ferdinand I., of attendance at the wedding of Philip of Spain and Mary of England is to bring Ferdinand congratulations. In the autumn of 1554 Ferdinand I. Busbecq sent as ambassador to Suleiman to Constantinople Opel, so he negotiated a truce with the Ottoman Empire in order to relieve the weakened empire of the Habsburgs. Busbecq breaks on November 23, 1554 from Vienna and travels with his entourage in the car first to Buda, from there on the Danube to Belgrade, then back to land via Nish, Sofia and Adrian Opel Opel to Constantinople. Arriving at January 20, 1555 in Constantine Opel, Busbecq not find the Sultan but in his residence before and discovers that Sultan Suleiman currently is traveling in Asia Minor, so that he has him far, join him in the East, in the old royal city of Amasya. After three weeks of waiting Busbecq travels after him on Ankara to finally negotiate on April 7, 1555 in Amasya in an audience with the Sultan a six -month truce. When he finally met with the Sultan, he has apparently just do not feel at peace talks and rejects him with the words " Güzel, Güzel ", " beautiful, beautiful ", from. As a consolation, he gives Busbecq a few tulips and hyacinths, in addition some lilac plantlets. All this brings Busbecq home and leads these plants help of his friend Charles de l' Ecluse ( latin.: Carolus Clusius ) characterized in Western Europe. On him the name of the tulip is (in Turkish and Persian Lale ) as Tulipam back: apparently he had kept the name of the turban ( Turkish tülbent ), were carried to the flowers often, the name of the plant itself. Falsely you want to reduce the planting of lily and of horse chestnut in Europe at him. But this assumption is based on a confusion regarding the latter with his successor in Constantinople Opel Ungnad Baron, who sent in 1576, the first fruits of this tree to Clusius in Vienna.

Busbecq meets in July 1555 after a little more than one month lasting journey back to Vienna. In November 1555, he again leaves Vienna and breaks again after Konstantin Opel, where he acts as an ambassador in Constantinople Opel for six years to 1562. How Busbecq in turn increasingly acquires the trust of Süleyman, white Busbecq the more skillful he had acquired over the years inside insights into the tense political situation in the Ottoman Empire for its negotiating objectives against Süleyman use. Indeed succeeded in 1562 Busbecq, the ( (his mother tongue), Latin, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Slavonic Flemish) should have fluent allegedly seven languages ​​, despite very patchy Turkish language skills and to negotiate an eight-year ceasefire despite low diplomatic experience after Ferdinand's death in 1564 her end place.

Awareness among classical philologist Busbecq acquires the fact that he go in Ankara an almost completely preserved Res Gestae Divi Augusti copy of, the annual report of the Roman emperor Augustus, discovered the so-called Monumentum Ancyranum. Other inscriptions he ends at Clusius and Justus Lipsius, published by Heinrich Smetius and Jan Gruter. Not less than 240 manuscripts go as gifts to the Vienna Court Library, including a magnificent manuscript of Dioscorides Pedanios, the largest with about 500 described species list of plants of antiquity ( the Vienna Dioscorides ). A lion and a mongoose find their way into the imperial collections in Vienna. His submitted in four letters travelogue in Latin ( Legationis turcicae Epistolae quattuor Paris in 1589 and passim; first partly published udT: .. Itinera Constantinopolitanum et Amasianum et de re militarized contra Join now instituenda consilium Antwerp 1581/82 ) describes in detail the daily life ( for example, the caravanserais, clothing habits, pet care, garden care, treatment of women) and the political system of the Ottoman Empire, which is drawn by the first internal crisis symptoms. Very probably have been still being revised after his return in 1562 from him in order to achieve a uniform characteristic style in the presentation, all four letters. During his stay in Constantinople he meets Opel also two people who were still of Krimgotischen powerful; by Busbecq makeshift recorded words and phrases are our only evidence of this now defunct language. Even today, parts of Busbecqs report are used because of their simple, elegant Latinity and especially because of their mellow - well-meaning everyday observations of a non-European culture in Latin class.

After his return from Turkey ( 1562) Busbecq active in Vienna as a teacher of the sons of Maximilian II and also of his daughter Elizabeth. 1564, he accompanied the ore dukes to the Spanish court. When Elizabeth in 1570 the French king Charles IX. marries, he follows her as Lord Chamberlain to Paris. After the king's death and Elizabeth's return to Vienna ( 1575) Busbecq acts as administrator of her French Wittums, ie those areas of France, the Habsburg had received as dowry. 1582 he is an imperial ambassador at the French court. As Busbecq after Elizabeth's death in the fall of 1592 by the Emperor receive permission, in his Flemish homeland to visit relatives for half a year, he has to pass through the troubled by religious and civil wars Normandy on his way to Belgium. Although in possession of all necessary identification documents that assure him diplomatic status, it takes at Rouen a soldiery of the Catholic League captured and plundered him out. These incidents put the septuagenarian to such an extent that it incurs a heavy fever, where he died on October 28, 1592, eleven days after the attacks, in Saint- Germain- sous- Cailly. His body is buried in the local chapel and his heart sent in a lead capsule after Bousbecque where you beisetzt it in the family tomb.

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

Augerius isthic est situs Busbequius. Quis ille, quem virtutis et prudentiae habuere carum, Gratia, ipsi Caesares. Hunc aula eorum vidit, aula et Extera Asiae tyrannical. Quae viri felicitas! Probavit et haec illa. In omni tempore, in munere omni Nestorem se praebuit lingua atque elements. Iam quies eum sibi et haec patria spondebat; ecce sustulit viam by Ipsam miles incertum to latro. Sed sustulit, simulque sidus Belgicae, quod nunc chorea Fulget inter astricas.

Writings

  • Legationis turcicae Epistolae quattuor. Paris in 1589 and passim ( first partly published udT: Itinera Constantinopolitanum et Amasianum et de re militarized contra Join now instituenda consilium Antwerp. Plantin 1581/82 ). Ogier Ghiselin of Busbeck: Four letters from Turkey. Translated from Latin d, introduced and annotated by tungsten from the stones ( The Circle World, Vol 2). Erlangen: Publishing House of the philosophical academy 1926 (229 pp., with 20 reproductions of contemporary woodcuts and copper [ in the text and in Plate ] ).
  • The Turkish letters of Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq: imperial ambassador at Constantinople 1554-1562, transl. from the Latin ... by Edward Seymour Forster. Oxford 1927 (Reprint 1968).
  • Four brieven over het naar gezantschap Turkije, Hilversum 1994, ISBN 90-6550-007-3
  • Jürgen Behrens ( ed.): Letters from Turkey. The Messenger of Ogier de Busbecq in the kingdom of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent ( Studio. Small Latin texts for entertainment, for thought and more, Volume 7 ). Bamberg: CC Buchner 1998 ( 32 pp., selection), ISBN 3-7661-5727-2.
  • 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 d' Ogier Ghiselin de turques Busbecq .. Traduction Dominique Arrighi. Champion, Paris 2011 ( Bibliothèque littéraire de la Renaissance Sér.4, 84), ISBN 978-2-7453-2205-0.
  • Legationis turcicae Epistolae quatuor (p. 1-373 ) Epistola I [ Vienna Austriae, Calend. Septembris 1554 ] (p. 1-107 ).
  • Epistola II [ Constantinopoli, Pridie Idus Iul. 1555 ] (pp. 108-127 ).
  • Epistola III [ Constantinopoli, calendis Junii 1560 ] (pp. 127-261 ).
  • Epistola IV [ Francofordiae, the 16th Decembris 1562 ] (pp. 262-373 ).
88052
de