

First Known Image of Cucurbita in Europe, 1503–1508

H A R R Y S . P A R I S
1,

*, M A R I E - C H R I S T I N E D A U N A Y
2
, M I C H E L P I T R A T

2
and J U L E S J A N I C K

3

1
Agricultural Research Organization, Newe Ya’ar Research Center, PO Box 1021, Ramat Yishay 30-095, Israel,

2
INRA, Unité de Génétique & Amélioration des Fruits et Légumes, Domaine St Maurice, BP 94, 84143,

Montfavet cedex, France and
3
Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Purdue University,

625 Agriculture Mall Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2010, USA

Received: 1 February 2006 Returned for revision: 14 February 2006 Accepted: 22 February 2006 Published electronically: 10 May 2006

� Background The genus Cucurbita (pumpkin, squash, gourd) is native to the Americas and diffused to other
continents subsequent to the European contact in 1492. For many years, the earliest images of this genus in Europe
that were known to cucurbit specialists were the two illustrations of C. pepo pumpkins that were published in Fuchs’
De Historia Stirpium, 1542. Images of fruits of two Cucurbita species, drawn between 1515 and 1518, were recently
discovered in the Villa Farnesina in Rome.
� Findings An even earlier image of Cucurbita exists in the prayer book, Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne,
illustrated by Jean Bourdichon in Touraine, France, between 1503 and 1508. This image, which shows a living
branch bearing flowers and fruits, had not been examined and analysed by cucurbit specialists until now. The image
is identified as depicting Cucurbita pepo subsp. texana. Unlike some of the fruits of Cucurbita depicted in the Villa
Farnesina a decade later, this image does not depict an esculent and does not constitute evidence of early European
contact with New World agriculture. Based on the descriptive, ecological and geographical accounts of C. pepo
subsp. texana in the wild, the idea is considered that the image was based on an offspring of a plant found growing
along the Gulf Coast of what is now the United States.

Key words: Cucurbita pepo, Lagenaria siceraria, Cucumis sativus, Bryonia dioica, Cucurbitaceae, crop dispersal,
crop history, plant iconography.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

The genus Cucurbita L. (pumpkins, squash and some
gourds) (Cucurbitaceae) is native to the Americas (Gray
and Trumbull, 1883; Whitaker, 1947). Pumpkins and squash
were dispersed to other continents by transoceanic voyagers
at the turn of the 16th century and have become a familiar
and important vegetable crop in many countries. According
to the FAO, over 1500 000 ha of pumpkins, squash and
gourds were harvested in 2005. Most of the total yield of
nearly 19 000 000 tonnes was produced in Asia and Europe,
with much of the remainder in North America (FAO, 2006).
The three widely grown species, Cucurbita pepo L., C.
maxima Duchesne and C. moschata Duchesne, are
extremely polymorphic in fruit characteristics. The fast
growth rate of pumpkins and squash, their large size, dec-
orative value and role as common table vegetables have
fostered fascination and wonder among people of widely
different cultures (Norrman and Haarberg, 1980).

Plant iconography is the most unequivocal tool for assess-
ing the historical presence of botanical taxa in a particular
region; this is especially the case for the Cucurbitaceae
(Eisendrath, 1961). The first known images of Cucurbita
outside of the Americas had long been believed to be two
illustrations of pumpkins of C. pepo that appeared in De
Historia Stirpium (Fuchs, 1542), 50 years after Columbus’
first voyage to the New World (Sturtevant, 1890; Zhiteneva,
1930; Whitaker, 1947; Eisendrath, 1961; Paris, 1989, 2001;
Meyer et al., 1999; Teppner, 2000). Recently, depictions of
fruits of the North American species C. pepo and of the

South American species C. maxima, painted between 1515
and 1518, were recognized in the festoons at the Villa
Farnesina in Rome (Caneva, 1992; Ravelli, 2004; Janick
and Paris, 2006). These indicate the existence of New World
cucurbits in Europe by that time and antedate the depictions
of C. pepo in Fuchs’ herbal by a quarter century.

Recently the authors became aware of a depiction of
Cucurbita in the Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne, a
prayer book compiled and illustrated in Touraine, France,
between 1503 and 1508, antedating the depictions in the
Villa Farnesina by a decade. The objective of this paper is to
describe the historical context and to present, analyse and
discuss this image of Cucurbita in comparison with those of
the two other cultivated cucurbit species illustrated in the
book. The Cucurbita image will be identified taxonomically
to the level of subspecies and then the possible origin of this
New World taxon in the Loire Valley of France, within
16 years of the European contact with the Americas, will
be considered briefly.

H I S T O R I C A L C O N T E X T

Anne de Bretagne (1477–1514), Duchess of Brittany, was
twice Queen of France, the first time by marrying Charles
VIII in 1491 and the second time, after his death, by
marrying his successor, Louis XII, 8 years later. A pious
monarch, she ordered the famous artist Jean Bourdichon
(1457–1521), who was official court painter to four success-
ive French kings (Louis XI, Charles VIII, Louis XII and
François I), to richly adorn an Horae ad usum romanum,
that is, a prayer book for her personal use (Camus, 1894;* For correspondence. E-mail hsparis@agri.gov.il

Annals of Botany 98: 41–47, 2006

doi:10.1093/aob/mcl082, available online at www.aob.oxfordjournals.org

Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company 2006


Bilimoff, 2001). Produced between 1503 and 1508 at Tours
in the Loire Valley, where Bourdichon lived and worked,
the book contains prayers, monthly calendars and full-page
paintings of religious themes. On each of the many 30 ·
18 cm pages that contain a prayer is a miniature painting
depicting part of a plant on, or next to, which are depicted
small animals, mostly insects. Well over 300 plant species
are represented in the book, drawn from live specimens
found in the fields, woods and Royal Gardens of Tours
and Blois (Lalanne, 1886; Camus, 1894; Bilimoff, 2001).
Most of these paintings are vertically oriented 165 · 45 mm
rectangles placed on the outside margins of the pages of
prayers; a few, located mostly in the first half of the book,
frame the prayers and others, located in the latter half of the
book, are in the shape of a square closing bracket, ]. Each is
labelled, in Gothic letters, at the top with a Latin name of the
plant and at the bottom with its French vernacular name.
The book is catalogued as Ms. Latin 9474 at the Biblio-
thèque Nationale de France (Table 1) and can be browsed
on-line in its entirety at http://mandragore.bnf.fr/html/
accueil.html, by clicking on Recherche, typing Latin
9474 in the small window Manuscrits and clicking on
Chercher.

The most outstanding feature of this book is the life-like
representation of so many species of living plants and small
animals, even though the images are not always biologically

accurate (Camus, 1894). Indeed, the relative sizes of the
various plant parts and the animals, the shapes of the leaves,
and the colours of the corollas and the animals sometimes
succumbed to fantasy in order to enhance the artistic effects.
Nonetheless, the paintings are accurate enough to allow
positive identification of many of the plants to genus and
species. These paintings, together with the labels of their
Latin and French names, combine to form an exceptional
botanical document of the French Renaissance. Three more
copies of this book were made, each differing somewhat
from one another, but the original is considered the finest
work (Male, 1904; Delisle, 1913).

Used by Queen Anne until her death, this book, which
with time was to become known as the Grandes Heures
d’Anne de Bretagne, remained within the collection of pre-
cious documents of the French kings. In August 1722, the
12-year-old King Louis XVth ordered the botanist Antoine
de Jussieu (1686–1758) to display before him manuscripts
and vellums from the royal collection that were illustrated
with natural, life-like plants and animals. The presentation
so pleased the King that he granted Jussieu’s extraordinary
request to borrow the Grandes Heures for a critical analysis
of the plant illustrations. On 14 November 1722, Jussieu
read before the French Academy of Sciences a short mém-
oire (treatise) in which he described the plant images in the
Grandes Heures as being much more realistic than those of

T A B L E 1. Locations and call numbers of the Grandes Heures and of related rare or difficult-to-access documents

Item Document Location Call no.

Book Horae ad usum romanum
(Les Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne),
original copy, 1503–1508

Bibliothèque Nationale
de France, Richelieu, Paris

Ms. Latin 9474

Catalogue A. de Jussieu, Catalogus Stirpium
elegantissime, 1722.

Bibliothèque Nationale
de France, Richelieu, Paris

Ms. Nouvelles Acquisitions
Françaises 5052, pp. 150–159

Treatise and
catalogue

A. de Jussieu, Réflexions sur diverses
dénominations françoises de plantes qui sont
dépeintes dans un manuscrit ancien du
cabinet du roy, followed by catalogue of the
plants, 1722.

Bibliothèque Centrale, Museum
National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris

Ms. 1930

Transcribed
treatise

A. de Jussieu, Réflexions sur diverses
dénominations françoises des plantes qui
sont dépeintes dans un manuscrit
du Cabinet du Roi. Procès-verbaux de
l’Académie Royale des Sciences,
séance du 14 novembre, 1722.

Archives, Académie des Sciences
de l’Institut de France, Paris

Volume 41, folio 292–297

Book, in two
volumes

L. Curmer, Le Livre d’Heures de la Reine
Anne de Bretagne (Vol. 1, catalogue of
plants by J. Decaisne and translation
of text from Latin to French;
Vol. 2, facsimile), 1861.

Bibliothèque Mazarine
de l’Institut de France, Paris

Res. Far. Fo. 27-1 and
Res. Far. Fo. 27-2

Article in periodical
containing
transcribed
treatise

L. Lalanne, Mémoire inédit d’Antoine
de Jussieu sur le livre d’heures d’Anne
de Bretagne. Bulletin du Comité des
Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques,
Histoire et Philologie, nos. 3–4, séance du lundi,
7 juin, 1886.

Bibliothèque Nationale
de France, Tolbiac, Paris

Per8 Lc 18,347 bis,
pp. 227–236.

Article in periodical E. Male, Jean Bourdichon et son atelier.
Gazette des Beaux Arts 32: 441–457, 1904.

Bibliothèque Nationale
de France, Tolbiac, Paris

SER3, A46, T31

Book L. Delisle, Les grandes heures de la reine Anne de
Bretagne et l’atelier de Jean Bourdichon, 1913.

Bibliothèque Mazarine
de l’Institut de France, Paris

9553

42 Paris et al. — First Image of Cucurbita in Europe

http://mandragore.bnf.fr/html/


earlier documents. He considered the illustrations to be of
very high quality, although not as fine as some of the draw-
ings on vellum within the royal cabinet. He observed that
most of the illustrations were of plants common in Touraine.
As vernacular names differed regionally and often changed
over time, Jussieu presaged Linné in suggesting that plant
names needed to be stabilized by the use of a dead language,
such as Latin. However, he considered many of the Latin
plant labels in the Grandes Heures to be erroneous. This led
him to prepare a catalogue, in which he tabulated the Latin
and French labels of the plants in the Grandes Heures next
to Latin designations used in major botanical works such as
those of L’Obel, the Bauhin brothers, and Tournefort, and
contemporary French common names (Camus, 1894). Both
the treatise and the catalogue were forgotten until the end
of the 19th century, when Lalanne (1886) published the
transcript of Jussieu’s treatise, housed at the Académie
des Sciences (Table 1), and located the catalogue (Jussieu,
1722a) at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. The
original treatise together with another copy of the catalogue
(Jussieu, 1722b) are at the Bibliothèque Centrale, Muséum
National d’Histoire Naturelle (Table 1); however, this
second copy lacks the contemporary French names and
differs in a few of the Latin designations.

In 1861, Léon Curmer, a bookseller and bibliophile,
published a luxurious and expensive facsimile of the
Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne, which was sold by
subscription. This special work, printed in a limited edition
of 850 copies in two volumes, was purchased by the pope,
the royalty of several European countries, and a number of
wealthy families (Curmer, 1861; Table 1). One volume
included a French translation of the Latin prayers and a
catalogue of the plants. The latter was a listing of the
Latin and French plant labels in the Grandes Heures along-
side identifications to Linnean Latin and vernacular French
names, the authorship attributed by Lalanne (1886) and
Camus (1894) to the renowned Belgian botanist Joseph
Decaisne (1807–1882). The second volume consisted of a
magnificent chromolithographic facsimile of the original
prayer book (Lalanne, 1886; Camus, 1894).

Camus (1894) traced the history of the Grandes Heures
and studied critically, side-by-side, the original copy of it, a
copy of the unpublished handwritten catalogue by Jussieu
(1722a), the Curmer facsimile with the catalogue by
Decaisne (Curmer, 1861) and the transcript of Jussieu’s
treatise in the article by Lalanne (1886) (Table 1).
Camus concluded that Curmer’s reproductions of the
drawings with their names were quite exact, differing
slightly from the originals only in the colours, which appear
to us to be more brilliant. On the other hand, Camus
observed that the Decaisne catalogue of plants was riddled
with errors in transcription from the original Gothic letter-
ing. Moreover, Decaisne apparently made his identifications
without knowing that Jussieu had done a similar work over a
century earlier. Camus reported that there were over 40 cases
in which the identifications made by Jussieu and Decaisne
did not match.

The Curmer work was in turn published as a facsimile, in
a single volume and in black-and-white, by Bonnot (1979).
Bilimoff (2001), in the Promenade dans des Jardins

Disparus, reproduced in colour, some whole and some in
part, the plant images from the Grandes Heures. This book
contains background information and references to Jussieu,
Decaisne and Camus. It also has a catalogue, listing the
names from the Grandes Heures alongside Latin and
vernacular French names.

Having became aware of the presence of four cucurbits
among the plants represented in the Grandes Heures d’Anne
de Bretagne from Bilimoff (2001), the authors located the
facsimile of Curmer (1861) and the complete original
images on the website of the Bibliothèque Nationale de
France. One of these, bearing the Latin name Napus
silvestris and the French name Naveaulx sauvages, is
bryony, Bryonia dioica Jacq., which grows wild but is
not cultivated. Another, bearing the Latin name Cucumer
and the French name Concombres, is indeed cucumber,
Cucumis sativus L. Another cucurbit, bearing the Latin
name Cucurbita and the French name Quegourdes, is bottle
gourd, Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standley. These three
cucurbits are of Old World origin. This paper focuses on the
fourth cucurbit image, bearing the Latin name Colloquitida
and the French label Quegourdes de turquie. As will be
discussed, earlier writers have agreed that this image was
modelled on a plant of the New World genus Cucurbita, but
the identification of the species has been controversial and
as far as is known no cucurbit specialists have examined the
image and positively identified it to that taxonomic level.

D E S C R I P T I O N O F T H E I M A G E O F
QUEGOURDES DE TURQUIE

The image of Quegourdes de turquie in the Grandes Heures
d’Anne de Bretagne [folio 161; image 295 of the web page;
chromolithograph image on page 323 in Curmer (1861);
partial image on page 92 in Bilimoff (2001)] is bracket-
shaped with a golden background (Fig. 1). It depicts a
branch with three pistillate flowers at anthesis that closely
resemble those of Cucurbita pepo. The large orange-yellow
corollas are moderately flaring, fused at the base and parted,
as petals, near the apex. The corollas are six-parted, rather
than the typical five-parted, but six-parted and even seven-
parted corollas do occur occasionally in C. pepo (Duchesne,
1786). The calyx is short and its sepals are thin, tapering to a
point at the apex, like an awl. The ovaries are inferior and
pyriform. A fourth pistillate flower, 1 day prior to anthesis,
is depicted near the apex of the branch. Six leaf laminae and
parts of three petioles are depicted. The leaf laminae are
acute, serrated and deeply indented, as in C. pepo, but their
shape is seven-parted rather than the usual more-or-less
five-parted. No detail is evident for the petioles, which
are spiculate in C. pepo, and no tendrils are depicted.
The two pyriform fruits are connected to the stem by
long, narrow peduncles. No detail is shown for the stem
and peduncles, which are angular and furrowed, respect-
ively, in this species. On and next to the plant are depicted a
snail and four arthropods: a caterpillar, a fly, a moth and a
beetle, all in life-like colour.

The two pyriform fruits of the Quegourdes de turquie
(Fig. 1) appear to be similar to many gourd-like fruits of

Paris et al. — First Image of Cucurbita in Europe 43


C. pepo but also resemble Lagenaria siceraria, the bottle
gourd. However, bottle gourds have white flowers. Upon
closer examination, the fruits of the Quegourdes de turquie
can be seen to bear longitudinal stripes: broad, light yellow-
green ones alternating with narrow light blue-green ones.
Fruit striping, as far as is known, does not occur in L.
siceraria. The striped colour pattern is quite common
among the pyriform gourds, wild and ornamental, of C.
pepo (Paris, 2001), although most often the broad stripes
are dark green (Paris, 2000). On the mature fruits of such
pyriform gourds, the broad dark green stripes alternate with
narrow ivory white stripes; when the fruits are immature, the
narrow stripes are light blue-green, as shown in the image.
The green coloration of both the broad and the narrow
stripes suggests that the fruits were immature. Cultivated
ornamental gourds of C. pepo, as well as wild gourds from
Texas, Cucurbita pepo subsp. texana (Scheele) Filov [syn.
C. pepo subsp. ovifera (L.) Decker], vary considerably in
fruit shape and colour (Bailey, 1937; Erwin, 1938; Bailey,
1943).

The image is labelled with a Latin epithet, Colloquitida
[sic], at the top and the French vernacular name,
Quegourdes de turquie, at the bottom (Fig. 1). The French
name quegourdes apparently had been used during that era,
first for bottle gourds and then extended to include other
gourds. Quegourdes was to become cougourdes or gourdes,

epithets applied to forms of Lagenaria (Duchesne, 1786).
During the 16th century, the adjective ‘Turkish’ implied an
exotic origin. For example, one of the two C. pepo pump-
kins appearing in the herbal of Fuchs (1542) is labelled
‘Türckisch Cucumer’ whilst maize (Zea mays L.) is labelled
‘Türckisch Korn’; both of these species, of course, are
native American plants. Therefore, the gourd plant illus-
trated in the Grandes Heures was recognized as new or
foreign, that is, as de turquie, thereby distinguishing it
from the Lagenaria gourds.

T W O O T H E R C U C U R B I T I M A G E S A N D
I N T E R P R E T A T I O N

As has been asserted concerning the identity of the cucurbits
illustrated in the botanical herbals of the Renaissance
(Eisendrath, 1961), the identification of the plants illustrated
in the Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne must take into
account the artistic style of the illustrator. Camus (1894)
wrote that Bourdichon did indeed use some artistic licence.
Therefore, comparison of the illustration of Quegourdes de
turquie with that of each of the two other cultivated species
of cucurbits offers valuable assistance in interpretation.

The plant branch depicted in the rectangular illustration
labelled Quegourdes [Fig. 1; folio 81; image 142 of the web

F I G . 1. The paintings of Quegourdes de turquie (left), Quegourdes (centre) and Concombres (right) in the Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne (1503–1508).

44 Paris et al. — First Image of Cucurbita in Europe


page; chromolithograph image on p. 163 in Curmer (1861);
p. 92 in Bilimoff (2001)] differs most strikingly from that of
Quegourdes de turquie by its white (instead of orange-
yellow) flowers and rounded (instead of acute) petals and
leaves, and in these characteristics is true to Lagenaria
siceraria. However, the two illustrations are similar with
regard to fruit shape and lack of detail of the stem.

The bracket-shaped illustration labelled Concombres
[Fig. 1; folio 204; image 341 of the web page; chromoli-
thograph image on p. 409 in Curmer (1861); partial image
on p. 92 in Bilimoff (2001)] does indeed appear to depict a
branch of a cucumber plant, Cucumis sativus. The depiction
shows a plant stem, eight leaves, seven bright yellow stam-
inate flowers at anthesis and eight on the day before
anthesis; two warted, more-or-less pyriform fruits are
attached to the stem by long, narrow peduncles.

The stem and petioles are depicted as smooth, without
any detail, even though the stems and petioles of cucumber
plants typically have large, somewhat prickly hairs. The leaf
laminae are angular, as in Cucumis sativus, but are deeply
five-, six- or even seven-lobed, whilst in reality those of
C. sativus are shallowly pentalobate (Robinson and
Decker-Walters, 1997). The lack of stem and petiole tri-
chomes and oddly lobed leaf laminae are thus common to
the illustrations labelled Concombres and Quegourdes de
turquie.

The staminate flowers have six petals instead of the typ-
ical five. In reality, six- or even seven-parted corollas can be
found occasionally on the same cucumber plant together
with five-parted corollas. The staminate flowers at anthesis
in the depiction are exaggeratedly large but are similar to
those of Cucumis sativus as regards their angular shape and
intense yellow colour. The peduncles of the fruits are depic-
ted as originating separately on the main stem rather than in
leaf axils; they are very long, narrow and smooth. Cucumis
sativus peduncles are typically spiculate and not so long,
and originate in leaf axils. The hexapetalous corollas and the
long, narrow, smooth peduncles not originating in leaf axils
are, again, in common with the illustration of Quegourdes
de turquie.

The fruits do not have the typical cylindrical shape of
cucumbers, being instead pyriform. At first, this could have
been understood as stylistic of the artist, given the similarity
of the shape with the two other more-or-less pyriform-
fruited cucurbits. However, there are instances in which
cucumber fruits do deviate from their usual, uniformly
cylindrical shape. For example, fruits can be distinctly
broader at the peduncle end than at the stylar end if pol-
lination is inadequate. In the illustration, however, the fruits
are broader at their stylar end. Moreover, the length-to-
broadest-width ratio is unusually low for a cucumber,
approximately 2 : 1 rather than the typical 3 : 1 or more, sug-
gesting that the plant had andromonoecious sexuality,
which is an uncommon characteristic in cucumbers that
is conferred by a single recessive gene (Robinson and
Decker-Walters, 1997). The two lowest leaf petioles at
the bottom of the illustration are depicted as originating
oppositely, rather than alternately, on the branch. Opposite
leaf arrangement at the base of the plant is another
unusual characteristic. Described as occurring in the

andromonoecious cucumber ‘Lemon’, it too is conferred
by a single recessive gene and the genes conferring
andromonoecy and opposite leaf arrangement appear to
be linked (Robinson, 1987). The fruit bears numerous
warts, typical of C. sativus. Considered alone, the peduncle
and fruit could suggest that the illustration might be of
a melon, Cucumis melo L. However, the leaf laminae of
C. melo are round instead of angular (Robinson and Decker-
Walters, 1997). As Bourdichon did accurately depict
L. siceraria with rounded leaf laminae, this would have
been expected if this illustration had been of a melon. Inter-
estingly, a pyriform, warted cucumber having opposite
leaves was also depicted in the botanical herbals of
Chabrey (1666), Gerard (1597) and Tabernaemontani
(1664). The illustration labelled Concombres does indeed
appear to depict a cucumber, evidently of the same market
type or cultivar depicted in those botanical herbals.

D I S C U S S I O N

The image of Colloquitida, Quegourdes de turquie (Fig. 1)
was listed by Jussieu (1722a, b) with the Latin epithet
Colocynthis fr. pyrif. fl. luteo and French epithet Coloquinte.
Derived from the Greek kolokynthis, the name colocynth
was initially applied only to the plant referred to today as
Citrullus colocynthis (L.) Schrader, as shown in Fuchs
(1542), Bock (1546), Dodoens (1616) and two images in
Chabrey (1666). This cucurbit taxon has pinnatifid leaf
laminae, small yellow flowers, and round, nearly spherical
fruits. Evidently, the use of the name coloquinte was
expanded to encompass other bitter cucurbits, most
often the small-fruited Cucurbita pepo (Gerard, 1597;
Tabernaemontani, 1664). Bauhin (1651) illustrated and
described the true colocynth and listed and described briefly
nine other plants that were also denoted colocynth. Seven
were described as having rough foliage, probably indicative
of C. pepo, an eighth was pyriform, probably also C. pepo.
The last was described as having soft foliage and white
flowers, evidently a small, bitter form of L. siceraria.
Jussieu’s cataloguing of the plant as a colocynth or colo-
quinte having pyriform fruit and yellow flowers does
indicate that he identified the image with what was to
become the Linnean Cucurbita pepo.

Decaisne (Curmer, 1861) identified the image as
Citrouille, Cucurbita pepo. Citrouille is French for pump-
kin, that is, a large, round, edible-fruited Cucurbita, usually
C. pepo and sometimes for C. moschata; it has been in such
use for several centuries (Duchesne, 1786; Jacobsohn,
2005). The illustration is not of a pumpkin but instead of
a plant bearing small, pyriform fruits; the appropriate
French epithet of the time would have been cougourdette
(Naudin, 1856). Decaisne’s use of the Linnean binomial
leaves no doubt, however, as to his identification of the
image, which is therefore in agreement with that of Jussieu.

On the other hand, Camus (1894) had been advised by a
Dr Bonnet that the illustration was of Cucurbita moschata.
Gibault (1912), who apparently was familiar with the three
widely planted species of the genus Cucurbita and thought-
fully considered the history of their arrival in Europe, cited

Paris et al. — First Image of Cucurbita in Europe 45


this disagreement. However, he did not offer his own iden-
tification for the Quegourdes de turquie. Bilimoff (2001)
was cautious, merely listing the image as of a Cucurbita sp.
The striping pattern of the fruits shown in the image is not
consistent with the possibility that this depiction is of the
cultivated species C. moschata, C. argyrosperma Huber or
C. ficifolia Bouché. Cucurbita maxima fruits can exhibit
narrow light-coloured stripes, but this species has rounded,
rather than angular leaves. Wild Cucurbita taxa invariably
have round fruits, with the exception of C. pepo subsp.
texana, which bears fruits that are most often oviform to
globose, with pyriform variants being fairly common
(Erwin, 1938; Bailey, 1943; Andres, 1987), and whilst on
most fruits the broad stripes are dark, intense green, fruits
having lighter-coloured broad stripes or that are even
entirely light-coloured or ivory white have also been
observed (Bailey, 1937; Decker-Walters et al., 1993).

Cucurbita pepo subsp. texana, one of three designated
subspecies of Cucurbita pepo, encompasses many cultigens
as well as wild plants (Paris, 2001). The cultigens include
four groups of edible-fruited cultivars, which have been
designated Acorn, Crookneck, Scallop and Straightneck.
These esculents are collectively referred to as squash.
This subspecies also encompasses one group of cultivars
bearing small, generally bitter and non-edible fruits, the
Oviform/Pyriform Gourds. These gourds are most often
cultivated today for ornament, but may have been grown
for some other purposes in the past. Often, they are
indistinguishable phenotypically from wild C. pepo
subsp. texana.

Quegourdes de turquie is a representation of a pyriform
gourd of C. pepo subsp. texana. Unlike the pumpkins depic-
ted in the festoons of the Villa Farnesina, this depiction in
the Grandes Heures is not of an esculent. Furthermore, this
image cannot even be considered as evidence of early
European contact with Native American horticulture.
While the depicted plant might have been an offspring
from a cultigen, it appears to be at least as likely that it
was derived from a wild plant. Significantly, wild C. pepo
subsp. texana is native to southern, south-eastern and central
USA, most often being reported from Texas, particularly on
the floodplains of several creeks and river systems that enter
the Gulf of Mexico and including two coastal counties
(Erwin, 1938; Decker and Wilson, 1986; Nee, 1990;
Decker-Walters et al., 1993).

The prayer book of Anne de Bretagne, Queen of France
and Duchess of Brittany, also contains an image of a bean,
identified by Jussieu (1772b) as Phaseolus flore luteo and
suggested by Camus (1894) to be the New World taxon
Phaseolus vulgaris L. There are a number of ways by
which seeds of American plants could have arrived in the
Loire Valley before 1508. The harbours of Brittany
(Bretagne) and Normandy had close historical and com-
mercial ties with Great Britain (Grande Bretagne) (Tanguy,
1991) and British and French sailors reached the Americas
by 1503 (Harrisse, 1892; Thomas, 2005). Moreover, the
Bretons and Normans actively traded with the Spanish and
Portuguese. Europeans, including Amerigo Vespucci,
entered the Gulf of Mexico as early as 1498 (Mollat,
2005), offering possible opportunities for encountering

and collecting Cucurbita pepo subsp. texana. Goods
brought by officially sponsored Spanish and Portuguese
ships returning from the Americas were of immediate inter-
est to European royalty and to the papacy. As early as May,
1494, Peter Martyr D’Anghera, courtier and chaplain to
Queen Isabella of Spain and tutor to the royal household,
sent a letter to Cardinal Asconio Sforza, secretary of state of
the Vatican (published in 1511 as De Orbo Novo), enclosing
seeds of many plants, including maize, from returning ships
of the second voyage of Columbus (MacNutt, 1912; Janick
and Caneva, 2005). Anne de Bretagne had strong diplomatic
ties with successive popes as well as family ties with Span-
ish royalty (Tanguy, 1991; M. Bilimoff, pers. comm.). For
Vatican and Spanish plenipotentiaries calling at the French
court, seeds from the New World would have been precious,
astonishing and appropriate gifts to present to a queen and
duchess who was fond of plants and proud of her gardens.

C O N C L U S I O N S

It is concluded that the image Quegourdes de turquie in the
Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne represents a branch
drawn from a plant of Cucurbita pepo subsp. texana. The
colour and shape of the flowers, the shape and striping
pattern of the fruit, and the angular shape of the leaf laminae
are collectively consistent only with this taxon. Completed
no later than 1508, this image is the earliest-known repres-
entation of Cucurbita in Europe.

The Quegourdes de turquie is an image of a pyriform
gourd, which is not an esculent (Paris, 2001). This depiction
of C. pepo cannot be considered as early evidence of
European contact with New World settlements because
such gourds have also been found repeatedly growing
wild in riverine habitats of Texas (Nee, 1990). Therefore,
it is quite possible, if not likely, that this image represents a
direct offspring of a wild plant found by an early explorer of
the Gulf Coast of Texas. The pumpkins, that is, the edible,
large, round fruits of C. pepo and C. maxima, depicted a
decade later in the Villa Farnesina in Rome, remain as the
earliest evidence known to us of the arrival of domesticated
Cucurbita in Europe (Janick and Paris, 2006).

What apparently is the first image in Europe of Cucurbita
pepo, and indeed of the genus Cucurbita, had until now
escaped the attention of cucurbit specialists. This is easily
understandable given the scarcity of the Grandes Heures
and related documents and the difficulty of locating and
accessing them. Publication of the Promenade dans des
jardins disparus: Les plantes au moyen age, d’après les
grandes heures d’Anne de Bretagne (Bilimoff, 2001)
revealed to us a fascinating piece of botanical history.

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S

The three images contained in Fig. 1 are presented by per-
mission of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. We
thank Yosef Burger of the Agricultural Research Organiza-
tion, Newe Ya’ar, Israel and Antoine Jacobsohn of the
Potager du Roi, Versailles, France, for their critical
reviews of earlier versions of the manuscript. We also thank

46 Paris et al. — First Image of Cucurbita in Europe


A. Lespagnol of the University of Rennes II and Michèle
Bilimoff for intriguing discussions, and Anna Whipkey of
Purdue University for expert assistance with the figure.
Contribution No. 127/2005 from the Agricultural Research
Organization, Bet Dagan, Israel.

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