Flowers of Fealty: Commemoration of the Christening of Elisabeth of Hesse (1598)
One suspects these botanical additions were meant to stage a conversation with the original manuscript. A dedicatory Latin poem wishes the princess happiness and that she continue “growing for a long time like a little blossom”, while the accompanying watercolor marginalia shows various flowers in full spring bloom. On the next page, the poem envisions the princess’s honorable name “flourishing” in the land and bringing forth flowers — verse that is framed by racemes of asphodels. There are text