page_title: Conrad Gessner
section_title: Publications
hierarchical_section_title: Conrad Gessner / Work / Publications
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Zürich, alter Botanischer Garten «zur Katz»&#160;: Walderdbeere, aus 'Conradi Gesneri Historia plantarum' von Conrad Gesner (* 1516; † 1565) English: Zürich&#160;: Botanical Garden «zur Katz» (Museum of Ethnology, University of Zürich)&#160;: Fragaria vesca 'Conradi Gesneri Historia plantarum' by Conrad Gessner (* 1516; † 1565)
context_page_description: Conrad Gessner was a Swiss physician, naturalist, bibliographer, and philologist. Born into a poor family in Zürich, Switzerland, his father and teachers quickly realised his talents and supported him through university, where he studied classical languages, theology and medicine. He became Zürich's City Physician, but was able to spend much of his time on collecting, research and writing. Gessner compiled monumental works on bibliography and zoology and was working on a major botanical text at the time of his death from plague at the age of 49. He is regarded as the father of modern scientific bibliography, zoology and botany. He was frequently the first to describe a species of plant or animal in Europe, such as the tulip in 1559. A number of plants and animals have been named after him.
context_section_description: Gesner’s first work was a Latin-Greek Dictionary, the Lexicon Graeco-Latinum (1537), compiled during his studies in Basel. This was a revision of an original work by the Italian cleric, Varinus Phavorinus or Guarino of Favera (d. 1537), Magnum ac perutile dictionarium (1523). Over his lifetime he was able to produce some 70 publications on many different subjects.
  His next major work was his unique Bibliotheca (1545), a landmark in the history of bibliography in which he set out to catalogue all the writers who had ever lived and their works. In addition to his monumental work on animal life, the Historiae animalium (1551–1558), he amassed a very large collection of notes and wood engravings of plants, but only published two botanical works in his lifetime,  Historia plantarum et vires (1541) and the Catalogus plantarum (1542) in four languages. It was in the last decade of his life that he began to compile his major botanical work, Historia plantarum. Although he died prior to its completion, his work was utilised by many other authors over the next two centuries, but was finally published in 1754.
  Not content with scientific works, Gessner was also active as a linguist and bibliographer, putting forth in 1555 his book entitled Mithridates. De differentiis linguarum [...], an account of about 130 known languages, with the Lord's Prayer in twenty-two languages. He also produced edited works of a number of classical authors (see Edited works), including Claudius Aelianus (1556)} and Marcus Aurelius (1559).
  A number of other works appeared after his death (posthumously), some long after (see Posthumous works). His work on insects was edited by various authors, including Thomas Penny, till Thomas Muffet brought it to publication as Insectorvm Sive Minimorum Animalivm Theatrvm (1634), finally appearing in English translation as The Theatre of Insects in Edward Topsell's History of four-footed beasts and serpants (1658).
caption: Fragaria vesca, Historia plantarum
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