WITHOUT FOOD OR WINE, LOVE GROWS COLD

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1. Goltzius illustrates this quotation from the Latin poet Terence (ca. 185-160 BC.): “Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus would freeze”. In other words, without food and wine, love grows cold. In Roman mythology, Ceres is the goddess of agriculture, harvests and fertility.

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BACCHANAL CELEBRATIONS BECOME DRUNKEN ORGIES

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2. Linked to the Dionysian mysteries, bacchanals were held in honor of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, drunkenness and excess (especially sexual excess). These fetes were originally held among women in secret on the 16th and 17th March. From this point, the celebrations took place at least three times a year, organised and supervised by respectable matrons. The bacchanals became public festivals and were celebrated across Greece and Egypt, but principally in Rome.

 

The festivals, which lasted between three and five days according to the region, were organised around theatrical performances which served as religious ceremonies. The bacchanals soon became a pretext for extravagant shows of disorder; such celebrations increasingly turned into night-time orgies of public drunkenness and licentiousness. The Romans distrusted this orgiastic cult, which planted disorder and posed a risk to the State. Men would feign religious frenzy as the women, wearing the disguise of the festival, ran towards the Tiber with torches. Among the initiated of the sect were certain high-ranking men and women.  It was decided that the bacchanals would only admit under-20s, considered more docile in the context of the wild initiations.

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The courtesan Hispala Fecenia revealed the secret of these practices to a young man whom she loved, Publius Aebutius, in order to protect him from his own mother, who wished to initiate him into the mysteries of Bacchus. Publius refused to be initiated, so was thrown out by his mother and stepfather. He sought refuge with one of his aunts, who advised him to share his story with the consul Postumius; after hearing the young man’s account, the consul decided to carry out a secret enquiry. The Senate was deeply troubled, fearing that the sect was a cover for a plot against the Roman republic. It charged its consuls to speak against the bacchanals’ night-time sacrifices, to reward informers and to prevent the initiated from gathering.

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The ‘scandal of the bacchanals’ (186 BC) led to a repression of the cult, with around 7000 of those involved condemned to death. A prophetess from the Campania region was said to have organised with her followers a large-scale fraud, leading to murders and extortion. The cult’s leaders were questioned; many of those attached to the movement were tortured, imprisoned or exiled. A senatus-consult banned bacchanals for almost one and a half centuries. The celebrations were reauthorized by Caesar. 

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Find out more: Gallery Bacchanals and Bacchanalian Scenes >>

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COSTUMES OF THE WINE TRADES: TO EACH HIS OWN ACCESSORIES

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3. “The grotesque costumes of Larmessin are famous today, thanks to the taste for graphic fantasy revived by modern artists... The principle – and the humour – of these drawings is found in the dressing of different working characters in the accessories of their profession. Some of the drawings move away from this by incorporating contemporary fashions; others are German imitations which bear witness to the popularity of such fantasy images.

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Despite the Mannerist roots of his whimsical compositions, Larmessin’s invention is absolutely original to the end of the 17th century, and the success of his images is proven by their reproduction for decorative use of today.” (Le Dessin d’humour du XVIe siècle à nos jours. Exhibition catalogue for the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 1971).

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NANTES AND BORDEAUX: RIVER AND MARITIME PORTS*

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4. The port of Nantes was considered at the beginning of the 18th century as the first in Europe, frequented each year by some 2,000 ships and boats. It is also the second French port after Bordeaux for the wine trade. It deploys its wine exports to the rest of Brittany (the Breton market absorbs half of the traffic, in strong competition with Bordeaux *), Holland and England. At the same time, and thanks to river transport in both directions, the towns of the Loire maintain intense trade. In the downstream part, Nantes plays a central role. Its "hinterland" extends very far upstream, to Orleans, where the westerly winds carry. Its seaport supplies the Loire basin with salt and products from the colonies (coffee, sugar). Orleans is a relay to Paris, especially for red wines (via the Briare canal and the Loing, a tributary of the Seine), East and Lyonnais. In the opposite direction, Nantes receives from all the Loire basin a lot of wheat and tuffeaux from Anjou, wood, wine (white wines) and many other goods.

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5. The Pont de Pierre was Bordeaux’s first and only road bridge from 1822 to 1965. This etching by Garneray dates from 1830. It shows, on the flat top of the Saint-Michel belfry, Chappe’s optical telegraph, installed in 1823. However, Garneray’s 1822-1823 painting of the scene, which is what this aquatint is based on, doesn’t show the telegraph.

The bridge marks the end point of the maritime port where the tall ships gather. The bridge is reserved for the small river vessels (flat-bottomed boats and schooners) which continue up the Garonne. To the right, a bull dragging a barrel on a cart descends the ramp leading to the port of La Bastide.

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* Nantes faced great competition in the Breton market from the Aquitaine wine trade. This competition went from the Bordeaux vineyards to the unloading ports, down to sales to individuals and taverns. The Brittany countryside represented the largest share of this market in the kingdom of France throughout the 18th century. The wines of Bordeaux, Bourg, Blaye and Libourne were particularly popular among Breton consumers. Large ports such as Nantes and Lorient were distribution hubs which allowed Aquitaine wines to be sent towards European and overseas markets, while the secondary ports of Redon, Vannes and Quimper were used as a kind of regional warehouse. Small Blaye, Plassac and Breton coasters brought the Bordeaux wines to Breton ports. Other distributors, both on water and on land, ensured that the wines were distributed to places where they would be consumed. (Source: Bordeaux et la Bretagne au XVIIe siècle, Les routes du vin, Hiroyasu Kimizuka, 2015, Presses universitaires de Rennes).

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Find out more: Gallery From Cellar to Port >>

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1791 SCRAPPING OF DUTY ON GOODS ENTERING PARIS

 

6. Abundance, Bacchus and Ceres Entering the Capital (Musée Carnavalet, Paris) celebrates the abolition, on 1st May 1791, of duty payable on goods entering Paris. On the back of the engraving: “Let us celebrate forever this great day, when our wise legislators abolished the entry duties, where the rapacity of farmers-general and their agents was brought down! / The people can rejoice in Nature’s precious treasures; the poor man, like the rich, will procure goods with greater ease now that the terrible fear of the barriers has been […] / the race of wolves has been destroyed, prosperity will rise again from the industrious hands of the farmer and artist.

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IN PARIS, A NEW WINE MARKET AT THE DAWN OF THE 19TH CENTURY

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7. There has been a wine market on the Quai Saint Bernard since 1662 (Port-aux-vins de Paris) to allow access from the Seine. With wine consumption continuing to rise in the capital, in 1808 it was decided that a considerably enlarged and more modern market should be built.