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Back to Rare Books Icones Animalium: Images from Renaissance scienceThe Author: Conrad Gessner
Renaissance man, polyhistor, encyclopaedist, Gessner corresponded widely with naturalists and scholars throughout Europe. His vast output of over 70 publications and much unpublished material covered the fields of botany, zoology, medicine and pharmacology, classical philology, theology and linguistics. He published the first bibliography of its kind, Bibliotheca Universalis, listing 1800 authors and their works.. Gessner is remembered as one of the five giants of zoology of the 16th century, the others being Pierre Belon, Guillaume Rondolet, Ulisse Aldrovandi and Hippolyte Salviani. Gessner's writings, the first large-scale illustrated works on zoology, became standard reference works throughout Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. He employed eminent artists of the day to ensure that his woodcuts were as scientifically accurate as possible. These illustrations were heavily plagiarised for the next two hundred years. Gessner's importance to science stems largely from the fact that his monumental zoological publications were the first comprehensive works on the animal world since Aristotle, some 1800 years previously. Gessner died in Zurich, of the plague, in 1565 at the age of 49.
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Conrad Gessner [1516-1565] has been claimed the greatest naturalist of his times, 'the father of bibliography' and the 'father of zoology'. He grew up in Zurich, and constantly struggled to make a living, working as a tutor, then lecturer, as he pursued his studies in Paris, Basel and Montpellier, becoming a doctor in 1541 and appointed city physician in 1554. He never achieved financial security or independence and relied on various patrons to pursue his literary work.
