Lunaria graeca perennis/ Lunaria graeca annua

  • Translation

Article ID DP0505

Title

Lunaria graeca perennis/ Lunaria graeca annua

Description

Splendourful representation of 2 Brassicales plants 1.edition of the Hortus Eystettensis, printed and issued from Basilius Besler in Nuremberg 1613.In 2013 it was the 400 anniversary of the first edition!

Year

ca. 1613

Artist

Besler (1561-1629)

Basilius Besler (1561–1629) was a respected Nuremberg apothecary and botanist, best known for his monumental Hortus Eystettensis. He was curator of the garden of Johann Konrad von Gemmingen, prince bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria. The bishop was an enthusiastic botanist who derived great pleasure from his garden, which was the only important European botanical garden outside Italy. The work was named Hortus Eystettensis (Garden at Eichstätt). The emphasis in botanicals of previous centuries had been on medicinal and culinary herbs, and these had usually been depicted in a crude manner. The images were often inadequate for identification, and had little claim to being aesthetic. The Hortus Eystettensis changed botanical art overnight. The plates were of garden flowers, herbs and vegetables, exotic plants such as castor-oil and arum lilies. These were depicted near life-size, producing rich detail. The layout was artistically pleasing and quite modern in concept, with the hand-colouring adding greatly to the final effect. The work was first published in 1613 and consisted of 367 copper engravings, with an average of three plants per page, so that a total of 1084 species were depicted.The work Hortus Eystettensis is the short title of a plant book by the Nuremberg apothecary Basilius Besler (1561-1629) with 367 full-page copper plates, which was first published in 1613 at the instigation of the Eichstätt Prince-Bishop Johann Konrad von Gemmingen (1561-1612). The subject of the work is the plants of the Hortus Eystettensis garden in the Renaissance style at Willibaldsburg Castle in Eichstätt. Archbishop Gemmingen, in office from 1595, commissioned the physician and botanist Joachim Camerarius (1534-1598) to expand the castle garden. After Camerarius' death, the Nuremberg apothecary Basilius Besler (1561-1629) continued his work. The work shows plant species from all over the world, including 349 species that occurred in Germany, 209 of southern and south-eastern European origin, 63 Asian, 9 African and 23 American species. Whether these plants all grew in the prince-bishop's garden at Willibaldsburg remains to be seen. The book contains almost all cultivated plants known at the time. "Wild plants" such as grasses and mosses, which were already described at the time, are not included, so the book is not a botanical textbook. Nor is it a pharmacopoeia, as only 250 of the plants described were recognized as having medicinal properties. Rather, the book is an important contribution to the prince-bishop's cosmopolitan representation beyond the small principality. The plants are only depicted in natural size where the book format allowed.

Historical Description

Plant science, or botany, deals in detail with the diversity of the plant world and tries to bring it into a system. The plants are examined in terms of structure, growth, life cycle, reproduction, metabolism and chemical properties. Plant science is one of the oldest sciences: people have been studying the effects of certain plants since early on. What was of interest was whether these were edible or of a healing nature. Today, five sub-areas make up botany. Plant morphology studies plant structure and form. This includes the internal and external structure as well as the structure of the plant cell. Plant physiology examines functional processes such as metabolism. Plant systematics brings order to the plant world. It describes precisely the different types of plants. Geobotany deals with the location of the plants. This includes the interaction between the plant and its environment. Ecophysiology explores to what extent and why plants have adapted to their environment in the past. This is particularly interesting because this also happens in environments with hostile conditions.

Place of Publication Nuremberg
Dimensions (cm)45,5 x 38
ConditionLeft margin in the middle, missing part restored
Coloringcolored
TechniqueCopper print

Reproduction:

60.00 €

( A reproduction can be ordered individually on request. )