One of the most extraordinary examples of a historical herbarium, with 1100 drawings of plants and flowers, at a competitive price
One of Germany’s most important Baroque gardens blooms again after 400 years with the Hortus Eystettensis, created at Eichstätt Castle in Baviera towards the end of the 16th century by Basilius Besler, a botanist and pharmacist from Nuremberg. Destroyed during the Thirty Years War, this fascinating ornamental botanical garden, a laboratory for the study of plant life, lived on in the famous Four Seasons Herbarium published in 1613 by Besler himself. In 367 large-scale, hand-drawn colour illustrations Besler documented 1100 botanical species, organised by the order they flowered in over the four seasons of the year. Besler’s Herbarium is one of the most valuable contributions to western botanical literature and has now been made available in a reduced size, which is however complete with all the original illustrations and enriched by botanical notes on each single plant and flower by the French botanist Gérard G. Aymonin written in the light of modern scientific knowledge.