Smelling the Past: A Brief History of Perfume and Its Uses by Tara Alexander

Have you ever popped into Boots to go perfume shopping? Maybe duty-free was far too tempting on your last trip through the airport. Or perhaps you’re a fragrance connoisseur, curating your scent aesthetic based on Pinterest boards and TikTok recommendations. Whatever the case, when we engage with scent, we do so with the past as well. Many of our favourite historical figures used perfume in the same way we do; to exude a vibe; to call to mind a memory; and of course, simply to smell nice. However, perfume hasn’t always been the spritz of scent we’re familiar with today. The first form of perfume was incense, and our earliest record dates from about 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. This incense typically combined ingredients such as resins, plants, spices, flowers, etc. Incenses could be compacted into a block and burned, with the rising smoke from these used for scent in the form of smoke. This is likely why “perfume,” stems from the Latin “per,” meaning through and “fumus,” meaning smoke. Thus far, the first recorded perfumer is a woman by the name Tappūtī-Bēlet-ekallim, found in an Assyrian tablet from 1239 BCE. Although this is true, archaeology tells us that perfume has been in production much longer. The earliest perfume distillery was discovered in 2003, by archaeologist Maria Belgiorno. Roughly 4,000 years old, the distillery is located in Pyrgos, Cyprus, and was once a hub for perfume production. The fragrances concocted here most often consisted of rosemary, bergamot, pine thyme, and or geranium – ingredients in many scents we still enjoy today. Clearly, perfume is by no means a novel concept. For thousands of years, harnessing and commercialising scents has been and continues to be of interest to us.

Aside from being a religious or cosmetic product, perfume was a medical device as well. As early as the 5th century BCE, Hippocrates (c. 460 BC-370 BC), a Greek physician, concocted the Miasma Theory. Its hypothesis posits that malignant vapours rise from decomposing organic matter, invade the body, and disrupt one’s health. To Hippocrates, all air contained small particles of this miasma. But in large quantities, this could cause illnesses such as the plague. Traces of Miasma Theory are still found in our modern-day medical terminology. For instance, the word ‘malaria’ is formed of the Italian “mal,” meaning bad, and “aria,” meaning air. People scrambled to find a way to fight off epidemics caused by miasma. One way to do so was by combating it with pleasant scents. Rosemary, lavender, pine, and lemon would be burned, consumed, and placed about the home to prevent encroaching malodours. Fragrance’s medical connotations opened a door to modern perfumery in the form of the oldest apothecary in the world – centuries later. Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy, boasts a pharmaceutical past that stems from Miasma Theory. Begun in 1221 as the monastic garden of Dominican friars, Santa Maria Novella originally dealt in providing the local community with remedies for ailments and illnesses. Yet, in the 14th century, when plague struck the city, the friars made efforts to distill rose water in order to cleanse houses of miasma, or prevent its spread, during outbreaks. This work rose to prominence in 1334, when the friars aided Dardano Acciaioli, one of the wealthiest Florentine nobles, in overcoming an unknown illness with bearberry extract. The apothecary only grew in renown from here, and when in 1533, Catherine de Medici was preparing for her wedding to Henri II of France, she selected a perfumer from Santa Maria Novella to create a wedding gift for her soon-to-be husband. Raised by the friars of the monastery, Renato Biancho, the man who would become Catherine’s personal perfumer at the French Court, concocted Acqua della Regina – a scent you can still purchase today! Aside from his work with Catherine, Biancho later established a popular shop on the Pont au Change in Paris. In her book Perfume: The Creation and Allure of Classic Fragrances, Susan Irvine describes the shop as being, “[...] decorated with ibises and mummies from Egypt as well as deathsheds, while a stuffed crocodile hung from the ceiling.” Whether it was the intriguing decor or the quality of the fragrances that helped the shop succeed, Catherine’s move from Italy and Biancho’s employment are significant in that they symbolise the rise of France as an olfactive epicentre. Prior, the perfume capital of Europe resided in Venice, with its famed merchants and ports that abounded with spices, fabrics and resins from the far East. By the seventeenth-century, perfume, now a symbol of luxury, status and health, had become a staple across Europe’s aristocracy. Fear of unclean air propelled people to increase their own personal cloud of scent both to smell hygienic and prevent illness. Pomanders, a ball made to hold perfume, would often be hung around the neck, from a belt, or attached to a girdle. These were made of gold or silver, and were commonly packed with ambergris, benzoin, musk or civet, though ingredients varied. Perfumers entranced nobles with novelties from the commonplace scented gloves and sachets to drinking glasses, mirrors and hair powder. Aristocratic homes oozed fragrances. ‘Perfume-cakes’ would be placed in the hearth to permeate a space with pleasant scents, and the wealthiest households hired servants mainly to fumigate clothes and rooms. Still, aromatics were appreciated even in the homes of the lower-classes. Floors would be strewn with fragrant herbs like lavender rather than rushes, and plants would be employed to protect and cleanse the home. The aristocracy’s obsession with perfume is best observed in Louis XIV of France, the Sun King – also known as the man who possibly only bathed thrice in his life. Every aspect of the Sun King’s life overflowed with an olfactive aura. Upon entering Louis’s palaces, visitors would be sprayed with perfume; his clothing was imbued with orange blossom and nutmeg; he had bowls of fragrant plants placed around Versailles; he commissioned a new scent for every day of the week. Although to modern tastes these activities seem inspired by creating a pleasant scent, Miasma Theory and medicinal roots of fragrance abounded even in the 18th century. Through the King’s mission to supply his palaces with a myriad of fragrances, one of his doctors created the cassolette, or perfume burning box. Much like a wax melting device today, this box would spread the smoke of a burning perfumed pellet in an attempt to offset miasma. Louis’s love for perfume was such that Montpellier and Grasse, two cities well known for their production of fragrance, were at an all-out-war to be granted the responsibility of creating products for the king. Thus, under the Sun King, perfumers flourished. The French court’s appreciation for perfume carried on throughout the rule of both Louis XV and his grandson, Louis XVI. Madame du Pompadour, the mistress to Louis XV, was allowed a staggering perfume budget of 500 livres (roughly £50,505). Marie Antoinette, infamously dubbed Madame Déficit for her lavish lifestyle and wild spending habits, was no less frugal when it came to perfume. The French Queen had a collection of ornate golden perfume bottles, including one in the shape of a swan that was said to be a gift from her husband, Louis XVI. Excessive spending on fragrance dubbed the French Court la cour parfumée, the perfumed court, and following the French Revolution caused a sharp decline in interest in such luxuries in France. Nevertheless, it allowed many of the oldest perfume houses such as Houbigant, Lubin, Guerlain, Fragonard, and Galimard, to form. Some of these noble houses of fragrance still produce historical scents related to the figures that provided them their foundations. Lubin’s Black Jade is inspired by Bouquet de la Reine, one of Pierre-François Lubin’s original recipe books from the 1780s. Oral tradition links the last original vials of the perfume to one of Marie Antoinette’s ladies-in-waiting, the Duchesse de Tourzel. As such, some think the recipe is inspired by Marie herself. Guerlain also boasts Eau de Cologne Impériale, formulated for Napoleon III’s wife Empress Eugenie. The bottle is still adorned with the imperial bees of the French Second Empire. As a result of its origins, perfume has become a commonplace pleasure with which we express personality, entrap memories, and sometimes, attempt to smell nice on our morning commute. Much like the Medici and their status as patrons of the arts, these figures and their appreciation for fragrance lay the groundwork for a renaissance of perfume that has made scent as we know it in a modern context.

Today, perfume is actively being used to present the past to the public. In 2007, at the Musei Capitolini in Rome, Italy, archaeologists worked with curators to host the The Perfumes of Aphrodite and the Secret of Oil exhibit. Showcasing different artefacts from the aforementioned perfume factory in Pyrgos, Cyprus, scientists also recreated the 14 scents that were created there. These fragrances consisted of herbs and spices such as almond, coriander, and bergamot. As visitors passed through the exhibit of amphoras and jugs used in ancient perfume creation, they could visit a glass display to lift lids and smell these scents – all named for different Greek deities. For a moment, it might have felt as though they were transported to the ancient world. Additionally, just this year, the British Library reformulated four medieval fragrances for their Medieval Women: In Their Own Words exhibit. Two of the scents, being a hair fragrance and a breath freshener, originate from a 13th century cosmetic collection entitled De Ornatu Mulierum. These scents incorporate herbs and flowers familiar to us today, such as dried roses, nutmeg, and cloves. Alongside a burst of sound and light effects, these olfactive sensations allow for an immersive experience. For a brief second, one might encounter the familiar for a medieval woman. Museum exhibits such as those curated by the British Library and Musei Capitolini provide visitors with historical interpretation in the form of olfactive engagement. Rather than learning through viewing objects, listening to historical interpreters, or walking through a historic location, visitors might feel the past physically. There are few ways in which we can truly experience history firsthand in the same way it would have been perceived by its contemporaries. However, it is possible today to smell some of the exact same things historical figures might have done. In Santa Maria Novella’s Acqua della Regina, Lubin’s Black Jade, and Guerlain’s Eau de Cologne Impériale we might access the daily lives and routines of historic figures. These are the same scents through which these luminaries, separated from us by time and space, might have recalled fond memories and prevalent emotions. Applying this to exhibits in the form of not only personal fragrance, but also common scents from different periods, makes this form of tactile history accessible to wider audiences. The history of perfume allows us to understand why perfume was created and how it has evolved over time. Perfume is inextricably linked to the history of mankind from its rituals and medicines to its luxuries and pleasures. Scent acts as an olfactory bridge through which we might access the past and humanise the people who dwell there.