Basilius Besler (1561–1629) was a respected

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

apothecary and botanist, best known for his monumental ''

Hortus Eystettensis ''Hortus Eystettensis'' (Garden of Eichstätt) is the short title of a codex produced by Basilius Besler, a Nuremberg apothecary and botanist, in 1613 describing the plants of the garden of the Prince-Bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria. The Rena ...

''.

Biography

Besler was born in

, Germany on February 13 1561, the son of Michael Besler. His first wife was Rosine Flock, who he married on 31 January 1585. Later he married Susanne Schmidt on 1 December 1596. Altogether he had 16 children. He was elected a member of the city council in 1594. Besler established a pharmacy, ''Zum Marienbild'', at Nuremberg's Hay Market in 1589, and developed his own botanical garden and collection of specimens, for which he became well known. He was curator of the garden ( Eichstätt Garden) of

Johann Konrad von Gemmingen Johann Konrad von Gemmingen (also Conrad) (1561−1612) was Prince bishop of Roman Catholic Diocese of Eichstätt in Bavaria. The bishop was an enthusiastic botanist who derived great pleasure from his garden, which rivaled Hortus Botanicus Leide ...

(1561–1612), Prince-bishop of

Eichstätt Eichstätt () is a town in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany, and capital of the district of Eichstätt. It is located on the Altmühl river and has a population of around 13,000. Eichstätt is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

. The bishop was an enthusiastic botanist who derived great pleasure from his garden, which rivaled

Hortus Botanicus Leiden The Hortus botanicus of Leiden is the oldest botanical garden of the Netherlands, and one of the oldest in the world. It is located in the southwestern part of the historical centre of the city, between the Academy building and the old Leiden Obs ...

among early European

botanical gardens A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

outside Italy. The gardens surrounded the bishop's palace,

Willibaldsburg The Willibaldsburg is a spur castle, built around the year 1353, in Eichstätt in Upper Bavaria. Until the middle of the 18th century, it was the representative castle and seat of Eichstätt's prince-bishops. Location This fortified palace ...

, which was built on a hill overlooking the town. These gardens had been started in 1596 and designed by Besler's colleague, Joachim Camerarius the Younger (1534–1598), a physician and botanist. Upon Camerarius' death in 1598, Besler had the remainder of Camerarius' plants moved to Eichstätt and carried on the work of planting and supervision. The gardens were later sacked by invading Swedish troops under Herzog Bernhard von Weimar in 1633-4, but were reconstructed and opened to the public of Eichstätt in 1998. Besler died in Nuremberg on 13 March 1629.

Work

In 1611, the bishop, who was already quite ill, commissioned Besler to compile a codex of the plants growing in his garden, a task which Besler took sixteen years to complete, the bishop dying shortly before the work was published in 1613. This plant atlas or

Florilegium In medieval Latin, a ' (plural ') was a compilation of excerpts or sententia from other writings and is an offshoot of the commonplacing tradition. The word is from the Latin ''flos'' (flower) and '' legere'' (to gather): literally a gathering of ...

was published by Ludwig Jungermann and printed in large format. Besler did not consider himself scientist, but rather relied on the extant literature of his time including Camerarius, Clusius, Fuchs,

Tabernaemontanus Jacobus Theodorus (Jacob Diether), called Tabernaemontanus (1525 – August 1590) was a physician and an early botanist and herbalist, one of the "fathers of German botany" whose illustrated ''Neuw Kreuterbuch'' (Frankfurt, 1588) was the result of ...

and

Lobelius Mathias de l'Obel, Mathias de Lobel or Matthaeus Lobelius (1538 – 3 March 1616) was a Flemish people, Flemish physician and plant enthusiast who was born in Lille, Flanders, in what is now Hauts-de-France, France, and died at Highgate, Lon ...

, but his work predated the introduction of many overseas plants to Germany. He indexed the collection with both the Latin and old German names. At publication it represented the largest and most magnificent example of its type.

Legacy

Besler was commemorated by Plumier in naming a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of shrubs ''

Besleria ''Besleria'' is a genus of ca. 200 species of large herbs and soft-stemmed subshrubs or shrubs in the flowering plant family Gesneriaceae. They occur in Central America, South America, and the West Indies. The closely related genus ''Gasteranthu ...

''.

References

Bibliography

Books

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Websites

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Besler, Basilius 17th-century German botanists 1561 births 1629 deaths 16th-century German botanists