Well, then. The gallery of curiosities at the duke of Burgundy’s castle of Hesdin in 1433. Details from the gallery’s refurbishment - some features newly made, some restored & updated - which cost Philip the Good £1,000. (Currencies & conversions are tricky, but that’s A LOT): 1/
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Three figures which can be made to squirt water at people and wet them.
A contrivance at the entrance of the gallery for wetting the ladies as they walk over it.
A distorting mirror. 2/
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A device over the entrance of the gallery which, when a ring is pulled, showers soot or flour in the face of anyone below.
A fountain from which water spurts and is pumped back again. 3/
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A contrivance at the exit from the gallery which well and truly buffets anyone who passes through on the head and shoulders.
A room where water can be made to spray down just like rain, also thunder, lightning and snow, as if from the sky itself. 4/
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A wooden hermit which can be made to speak to anyone who enters.
A place where people go to avoid the rain, only to find themselves precipitated into a sack full of feathers below. 5/
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A bridge constructed in such a way that it is possible to cause anyone walking over it to fall into the water below.
Several devices which, when set off, spray large quantities of water onto the people in the room.
Six figures which soak people in different ways. 6/
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Eight conduits for wetting women from below.
Three conduits which, when people stop in front of them, cover them all over with flour. 7/
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When someone tries to open a certain window, a figure appears, sprays the person with water, and shuts the window.
A book of ballads lies on a desk, but anyone who tries to read it is squirted with soot, and anyone who looks inside it can be sprayed with water. 8/
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A mirror which people are invited to look at, to see themselves all white with flour, but when they do so, they are covered with more flour. 9/
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A wooden figure which appears above a bench in the middle of the gallery and announces, at the sound of a trumpet, on behalf of the duke, that everyone must leave the gallery. Those who do so are beaten by large figures holding sticks. 10/
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Those who don’t want to leave the room get so wet that they don’t know what to do to avoid the water. 11/
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In one window a box is suspended, and above the box is a figure which makes faces at people and replies to their question, and one can both hear and see the voice in this box. 12/
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Conduits and suitable contrivances low down and all along the wall of the gallery, to squirt water in so many places that nobody in the gallery could possibly save themselves from getting wet. 13/
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Other conduits and devices everywhere under the pavement to wet the ladies from underneath. 14/
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Details from R. Vaughan, Philip the Good (new ed. 2002), pp. 138-9, translating the account of moneys paid to the duke’s painter Colard le Voleur printed in de Laborde, Les Ducs de Bourgogne, Vol. I (1849), pp. 268-71. /End
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To be COMPLETELY fair to Philip the Good, I should point out that the gallery had originally been installed in the 13th C. But he DEFINITELY went all in on the refurb and upgrade. /Ends again
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@hrcastor
Does it beat the duke of Berry and his 17 chateaux, 1,500 hunting dogs, leopard and monkey?
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@HelenhCarr
Well... Philip kept a lion in the courtyard of his castle at Brussels and also owned a dromedary from Poland?
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@hrcastor
Burgundy was such a cool Duchy!!! Margaret Plantagenet and Mary Of B are my absolute favorite power duo!
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