2 - The Dutch Revolt: historical contexts

Summary

THE NETHERLANDS AROUND 1555

‘The people of this country are in general of beautiful stature, well made and proportioned, and amongst their other beautiful features they have the most beautiful men and women. In general their personage is upright but many exceed the normal and are tall, principally in Holland and Friesland where they are extremely tall.’

In these terms the Florentine merchant Lodovico Guicciardini praised the physical features of the inhabitants of the Low Countries. Lodovico, who was a member of the famous Guicciardini dynasty and a nephew of Francesco Guicciardini, spent most of his life in the Netherlands, especially in Antwerp where he lived for forty-eight years. In 1567 he published his Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi, which contained a meticulous description of the Low Countries, their towns and rivers, their economy, their political system and their inhabitants. According to Guicciardini the Dutch were rather ‘cold’ and sober-minded people, who wisely took the world and Fortune as it came. They were neither ambitious nor haughty, but polite and open, enjoying good company which sometimes led to licentiousness, especially since their main vice was drinking. Passion, even when love came into play, seemed alien to them: ‘As persons of cold nature they are very temperate in the matters of Venus, and they strongly abhor adultery.’

Guicciardini had a keen eye for Dutch women. He described them as beautiful, gracious and of good manners.