Who Invented Cologne?
For centuries past, the identity of the inventor of eau de cologne had been in question due to claims and counter claims by opposing factions. But on March 2, 2009, United Press International (UPI) released a news report naming Paolo Feminis (1666 to 1736) as the likely inventor of eau de cologne, based on a document discovered in a library in Paris.
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Who Reportedly Did It?
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Paolo Feminis was an Italian and a barber by trade, who moved from his hometown near Santa Maria Maggiore to Cologne, Germany. In Cologne, he created the formula for eau de cologne and introduced it in 1709.
Significance
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Subsequently, Feminis reportedly gave his eau de cologne formula to a fellow Italian named Giovanni Maria Farina. By one account, Farina was Feminis' nephew, who went to Cologne at his uncle's request to help out when the eau de cologne business boomed.
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Friction
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According to the UPS report, Farina's descendants maintained that he was the inventor of eau de cologne. The family reportedly demanded removal of a Santa Maria Maggiore website reference to Feminis as the inventor of eau de cologne.
Identification
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In the definitive document found in a Paris library, Farina's grandson (1718 to 1787) evidently describes eau de cologne as "invented by Paolo Feminis, Italian and distiller of Cologne."
History
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In 1732, Farina apparently took over the business, and marketed eau de cologne as a cure for multiple ills. It contained grape spirits, oil of neroli, bergamot, lavender and rosemary.
Fun Fact
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Eau de cologne was originally named Aqua Admirabilis. No less a figure than Napoleon (1769 to 1821) apparently endorsed it.
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Comments
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cologne
May 16, 2010
Fact is that there is no evidence to disprove this and all historical evidence of older Eau de Colognes in Cologne is manufactured (e.g. an approbration of Feminis' water by a doctor of the University of cologne, who, as the university's rolls show, never existed). Feminis produced Acqua Mirabilis, but we do not know its formula. As a historian I doubt one can pinpoint a genuine inventor of such products (it is like the telephone or phonograph - dozens of people were working on it independently of each other). What is beyond doubt, however is that Farina invented the name Eau de Cologne and made it a succesful product with a consistently high quality achieved through complex blending processes and a highly complex formula (he is, in other words no less than the Edison of EdC). The production volume, reputation, quality and price of his product, which started to become a bestseller in... -
cologne
May 16, 2010
The Giovanni Farina (1718-1787) mentioned in the article is Johann Anton Farina. While a member of the genuine cologne-producing family (he is the son of one of Johann Maria Farina the Elder's brothers) he was never involved in the family business, i.e. Farina gegenüber dem Jülichsplatz. Rather, he ran a cologne business of his own in Düsseldorf and he claimed to be using the original Feminis formula (the existence of which has never been documented - we do not know whether his acqua mirabilis, a generic term for all kinds of waters, had anything to do with what later became Eau de Cologne), thus presenting his product as older or more genuine than the Cologne company's. So I'm afraid this is old and irrelevant news. Farina Gegenüber claims that Johann Maria Farina invented a genuinely new product. Fact is that there is no evidence to disprove this and all historical evidence of...
