florilegium

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Renaissance Latin flōrilēgium, calque of Ancient Greek ἀνθολογία (anthología, “flower-gathering”) (compare English anthology), so called because flowers were used as symbols of the finer sensibility of literature.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌflɔɹəˈliːdʒi.əm/

Noun

florilegium (plural florilegia or florilegiums)

1. A collection of flowers.
   • 2004, Sarah Simblet, “Plants and Gardens”, in Sketchbook for the Artist: An Innovative, Practical Approach to Drawing the World Around You, New York, N.Y.: DK Publishing, Inc., published 2005, →ISBN, page 47:

     Rich owners of private gardens commissioned large-format florilegiums to immortalize their personal taste and power of acquisition, and the drawn pages burned with the urgency and excitement of explaining every plant’s form, color, and beauty.

   • 2006, Rudolf Borchardt, translated by Henry Martin, “The Garden and the Human Being”, in The Passionate Gardener, Kingston, N.Y.: McPherson & Company, published 2010, →ISBN, pages 50–51:

     Two centuries of German poetry lived in this old German flower garden, from the crude florilegiums of Baroque lyric to Eichendorff, who in its after-life, while looking back on so much by-gone glory, became its truest expression, as formulated by a new spirit, since poetry is the first and final need of the human soul, for which reality does not suffice.

   • 2006, Twigs Way, “Inspiration and Perspiration: Artists and Needlewomen”, in Virgins, Weeders and Queens: A History of Women in the Garden, Stroud, Glos.: Sutton Publishing Limited, →ISBN, page 78:

     There was a considerable overlap between florilegiums, with their wealth of botanical illustration and exotic collections, and embroiderers’ source books. Crispin van de Passe’s A Garden of Flowers or Hortus Floridus (1614) contained engravings and descriptions of all types of garden flowers, and proved as invaluable to the embroiderer as to the gardener.

2. An anthology, particularly of excerpts from larger works.
3. (Christianity) A patristic anthology.

References

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “florilegium”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.

Latin

Etymology

Calque of Ancient Greek ἀνθολογία (anthología, “flower-gathering”). By surface analysis, flōrilegus (“flower-gathering”, adjective) +‎ -ium (nominalizing suffix).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /floː.riˈle.ɡi.um/, [fɫ̪oːrɪˈɫ̪ɛɡiʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /flo.riˈle.d͡ʒi.um/, [floriˈlɛːd͡ʒium]

Noun

flōrilegium n (genitive flōrilegiī or flōrilegī); second declension

1. (Renaissance Latin) anthology

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

	singular	plural
nominative	flōrilegium	flōrilegia
genitive	flōrilegiī flōrilegī1	flōrilegiōrum
dative	flōrilegiō	flōrilegiīs
accusative	flōrilegium	flōrilegia
ablative	flōrilegiō	flōrilegiīs
vocative	flōrilegium	flōrilegia

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

Descendants

• → English: florilegium
• → French: florilège
• → Italian: florilegio
• → Spanish: florilegio