Live Breaking News & Updates on Courtesyar Mann Library Cornell University

Victorians Used Flowers to Send Secret Messages
Victorians elevated floriography to an art form and created bouquets to say things that could not be said aloud in polite society.
Author:
Courtesy of Dumbarton Oaks Archives
Victorians elevated floriography to an art form and created bouquets to say things that could not be said aloud in polite society.
When people get a bouquet of flowers today, the first thing they generally reach for is a vase to put them in. In Victorian times, people reached for their floral dictionary to decipher what secret message the flowers were saying.
From the simple daisy to the complex dahlia, flowers of every type have captivated for thousands of years, and the symbolic language of flowers has been recognized for centuries in many countries throughout Europe and Asia. Mythologies, folklore, sonnets, and plays of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Chinese are peppered with flower and plant symbolism, and nearly every sen ....

New York , United States , City Of , United Kingdom , Beverly Seaton , Emily Dickinson , Lady Mary Wortley Montagu , Jane Eyre , Dante Gabriel Rossetti , Vincent Van Gogh , Louise Cortambert , Charlotte Bronte , Vanessa Diffenbaugh , Barbara Allen , Jane Austen , Wentworth Castle , Courtesy Of Boston Public Library , Ar Mann Library Cornell University , Courtesyar Mann Library Cornell University , Courtesy Of The Wellcome Library , Floral Emblems , Robert Tya The , Frenchwoman Louise Cortambert , Madame Charlotte De La Tour , Kate Greenaway , Boston Public ,