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GESNER

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Originally appearing in Volume V11, Page 910 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GESNER [improperly See also:

GESSNER; in Latin, GESNERUSI, KONRAD VON (1516—1565), See also:German-Swiss writer and naturalist, called " the German See also:Pliny " by See also:Cuvier, was See also:born at See also:Zurich on the 26th of See also:March 1516. The son of a poor furrier, he was educated in that See also:town, but See also:fell into See also:great need after the See also:death of his See also:father at the See also:battle of Kappel (1531). He had See also:good See also:friends, however, in his old See also:master, See also:Myconius, and subsequently in Heinrich See also:Bullinger, and he was enabled to continue his studies at the 9 I 0 See also:universities of See also:Strassburg and See also:Bourges (1532-1533); he found also a generous See also:patron in See also:Paris (1534), in the See also:person of See also:Job. Steiger of Berne. In 1535 the religious troubles drove him back to Zurich, where he made an imprudent See also:marriage. His friends again came to his aid, enabled him to study at See also:Basel (1536), and in 1537 procured for him the professorship of See also:Greek at the newly founded See also:academy of See also:Lausanne (then belonging to Berne). Here he had leisure to devote himself to scientific studies, especially See also:botany. In 1540-1541 he visited the famous medical university of See also:Montpellier, took his degree of See also:doctor of See also:medicine (1541) at Basel, and then settled down to practise at Zurich, where he obtained the See also:post of lecturer in physics at the Carolinum. There, apart from a few journeys to See also:foreign countries, and See also:annual summer botanical journeys in his native See also:land, he passed the See also:remainder of his See also:life. He devoted himself to preparing See also:works on many subjects of different sorts. He died of the See also:plague on the 13th of See also:December 1565. In the previous See also:year he had been ennobled.

To his contemporaries he was best known as a botanist, though his botanical See also:

MSS. were not published till See also:long after his death (at See also:Nuremberg, 1751-1771, 2 vols. See also:folio), he himself issuing only the Enchiridion historiae plantarum (1541) and the Catalogus plantarum (1542) in four See also:tongues. In 1545 he published his remarkable Bibliotheca universalis (ed. by J.. See also:Simler, 1574), a See also:catalogue (in Latin, Greek and See also:Hebrew) of all writers who had ever lived, with the titles of their works, &c. A second See also:part, under the See also:title of Pandeclarium sive partitionum universalium Conradi Gesneri Ligurini libri xxi., appeared in 1548; only nineteen books being then concluded. The 21st See also:book, a theological See also:encyclopaedia, was published in 1549, but the loth, intended to include his medical See also:work, was never finished. His great zoological work, Historia animalium, appeared in 4 vols. (quadrupeds, birds, fishes) folio, 1551-1558, at Zurich, a fifth (See also:snakes) being issued in 1587 (there is a German See also:translation, entitled Thierbuch, of the first 4 vols., Zurich, 1563) : this work is the starting-point of See also:modern See also:zoology. Not content with such vast works, Gesner put forth in 1555 his book entitled Mithridates de differentiis linguis, an See also:account of about 130 known See also:languages, with the See also:Lord's See also:Prayer in 22 tongues, while in 1556 appeared his edition of the works of See also:Aelian. To non - scientific readers, Gesner will be best known for his love of mountains (below the See also:snow-See also:line) and for his many excursions among them, undertaken partly as a botanist, but also for the See also:sake of See also:mere exercise and enjoyment of the beauties of nature. In 1541 he prefixed to a singular little work of his (Libellus de lacte et operibus lactariis) a See also:letter addressed to his friend, J. See also:Vogel, of See also:Glarus, as to the wonders to be found among the mountains, declaring his love for them, and his See also:firm resolve to climb at least one See also:mountain every year, not only to collect See also:flowers, but in See also:order to exercise his See also:body. In 1555 Gesner issued his narrative (Descriptio Montis Fracti sive Montis Pilati) of his excursion to the Gnepfstein (6299 ft.), the lowest point in the See also:Pilatus See also:chain, and therein explains at length how each of the senses of See also:man is refreshed in the course of a mountain excursion.

Lives by J. Hanhart (See also:

Winterthur, 1824) and J. Simler (Zurich, 1566) ; see also Lebert's Gesner als Arzt (Zurich, 1854). A part of his unpublished See also:writing, edited by Prof. Schmiedel, was published at Nuremberg in 1753.

End of Article: GESNER

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