Hortus Eystettensis, 4 volumes (Limited Facsimile Edition)

A$5,000 · Offered by Harry Hartog Rare Books

BESLER, Basilius. Hortus Eystettensis, sive Diligens et accurata omnium plantarum, florum, stirpium... [The Garden of Eichstätt.] Facsimile of the 1613 edition. Sansepolero: Aboca Museum, 2006. 4 vols. Elephant folio (3 main vols.) and large 4to (1 commentary vol.). Three main volumes bound in full white vellum, intricately blind-stamped. Spines with ten raised bands and gilt titling on brown morocco panels. 367 full-page colour plates depicting over 1,000 plants. Signed by Dr. Klaus Walter Littger to rear certificate of conformity page of each volume. Facsimile reproduced from the 1613 original held at the Eichstätt University Library. Limited edition facsimile. Numbered 141 of 1,450 at rear colophon of each volume. Basilius Besler was a Nuremberg apothecary who spent sixteen years overseeing the creation of the most ambitious florilegium of the seventeenth century. His principle task was to document the garden of Johann Conrad von Gemmingen, Prince-Bishop of Eichstätt. This was considered the greatest private garden in German-speaking Europe at the time, and Gemmingen's ambition was to document it permanently in print. The task Besler undertook was extraordinary in its scope: to commission artists to draw every plant in cultivation at the garden, then to have those drawings engraved at full scale, printed, and hand-coloured with botanical accuracy. The result, published in 1613 in a folio of such dimensions that individual plates could be produced at something approaching a

• Binding: Hardcover

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