ABSTRACT
Visiting England in 1599, the German traveller Thomas Platter declared that the country’s “most resplendent objects may be seen in and around London”. He was impressed with the city’s civic pomp as well as the wealth of its merchants; but, like most continental visitors, he also spent much of his time viewing its sights. In Southwark, he saw bull and bear baiting; at Hampton Court, furniture and tapestries; at the Royal Palace in Greenwich, he looked at a number of “splendid objects [that] were gifts to the queen from the great potentates and lords”; at the Tower of London, he admired the animals, cannons, shields and other weapons, and also “three chests full of stuff, such as bed-knobs”; while at Whitehall Palace, “Besides other curiosities, [he] saw an immense whale rib.” Platter was also significantly impressed with his visit to the home of a certain Walter Cope, who, he reported, “led us into an apartment, stuffed with queer foreign objects in every comer”.1
