“[…] Non urbs, tamen urbibus ipsa major.” The Image of The Hague in the Dutch Literature and Art of the 17th and 18th Century

Abstract

Abstract Although in the early-modern period The Hague was not officially a city, its identity was based on specifically urban features. During the 17th and 18th century, its ambiguous status was explored by the authors of verse urban encomia and prose descriptiones urbium. In this article, the presentation of The Hague will be first discussed on the example of Caspar Barlaeus’ Latin poem “Haga”, and Constantijn Huygens’ Dutch encomium “’s Gravenhage” from the Dorpen [Villages] cycle of epigrams. Then, the image of The Hague will be examined in the context of an allegorical representation by Jan Caspar Philips in Jacob de Riemer’s Beschryving van ‘s Graven-hage [Description of The Hague, 1730]. The concluding remarks address the question of how the transformation of the status of The Hague undertaken by these writers and artists may be understood in the context of the literary-historical geography of the Northern Renaissance which has been a special subject of research by Professor Andrzej Borowski.