​Basilius Besler is not a botanical artist - but he's very important to the development of botanical art

​He is best known for compiling a book - the codex or florilegium known as Hortus Eystettensis.
He changed botanical art and the course of its future development.
​Florilegiums being developed today owe much to Basilius Besler.

​Introducing Basilius Besler (1561-1629)
​

LEARN ABOUT:
  • Basilius Besler - the botanist, apothecary and botanical art book publisher 
  • the structure and development of Hortus Eystettensis - the florilegium of all the known plants grown in the garden of the prince bishop of Eichstatt in Bavaria.
  • why the book is important to botanical art and why Linnaeus rated it so highly.
  • the garden at Eichstatt and learn how you can visit that garden today.
This page includes links to other websites providing further information about:
  • his life and work
  • the development of the project
  • ​online galleries and exhibitions of his work.
Picture
Portrait of Basilius Besler

Biography of Basilius Besler (1561-1629)
​

Basilius Besler (1561-1629) is best known for compiling the book - known as the Hortus Eystettensis.

This is a codex - or florilegium ('a gathering of flowers') - of all the plants grown in the botanical garden developed by the prince bishop of Eichstatt in Bavaria.

Besler was originally employed as an Apothecary and botanist - at a time when herbal medicine was very important. The earliest known visual records of plants were known as herbals and these were used by apoethcaries.

Subsequently, in 1611, the bishop-prince Johann Konrad von Gemmingen employed him - quite possibly at Besler's instigation - to document his Episcopal garden at Eichstätt. He was determined to record for posterity the spectacular garden he'd created at his palace in Bavaria with plants from around the world. ​Ironically, the work was finished a year after the Bishop's death in 1612. 

The intention of the project was:
  • to celebrate the diversity of God's creation and
  • to record the creation of the first botanical garden in Germany and the only one at the time outside Italy.

Besler is NOT a botanical artist - however without him we wouldn't have one of the best records of plants grown in gardens in the 16th century. 't enabled the recording of plant illustrations

Compiling the inventory took Besler some sixteen years. At the end of it he was able to buy himself a large house costing 2,500 florins in a fashionable district of Nürnberg. 
Picture
Caryophyllus multiplexfo Ins florumexrubro from Hortus Eystettensis
Although Besler is always cited as the author of the Hortus Eystettensis, it's more correct to say that he was the publisher since it was he who took on the responsibility of engaging the services of artists, engravers, printers, and colourists. Also he did not write the botanical descriptions of the plants. These were probably written by Ludwig Jungermann. (see Development below)
​
The whole collection is regarded as one of the finest treasures of botanical literature; it was described by Carl Linnaeus, the legendary 18th-century botanist and zoologist, as an “incomparable work.”

REFERENCE
Picture
Caltha palustris flore. Hand colored print. From 'Hortus Eystettensis'

The Hortus Eystettensis - and associated images
​

One of the most famous books about plants ever recorded on paper.
Picture
Basilius Besler Hortus Eystettensis Nuremberg 1613 - this edition is in the University of Liège Library
The Hortus Eystettensis - published in 1612 - changed the emphasis of botanical art forever.

Key aspects of this book are that it:
  • was the first botanical book that portrayed flowering plants as objects of beauty
  • changed the emphasis away from medicinal herbs 
  • recorded all plant life
  • recorded all the plants grown in a specific place - in a garden.
The Prince Bishop’s castle was surrounded by eight separate gardens, each with their own staff, with plants from the Americas and the Ottoman Empire imported through Amsterdam, Antwerp and Brussels. ‘He was obsessed with gardens, and wanted to show the wealth of his plant collection,’ says Fowler.
​Christies | The greatest flower book in the world
First a look at what the book looks like!

​The video below is about a deluxe edition of Hortus Eystettensis [Nuremberg]: 1613 - also known as "Besler's Botanical" - which was auctioned in a Books & Manuscripts sale at Christies in Bond Street in July 2016 for £1,930,500 (USD 2,563,704).

The video provides a very good insight into how big a book it was, what distinguished a deluxe edition from other editions and the process used for colouring the engravings.

REFERENCE: 
Royal broadsheet (540 x 415mm). Letterpress: dedication to Johann Christoph, Prince Bishop of Eichstätt, 2 leaves of privileges for France, Belgium and the Netherlands in roman, italic, or gothic type, 'Ordo' titles printed on plate versos, index leaves for each season (spring A-D, AA-CC; summer Aa-Hh; autumn aa-cc; winter A); without descriptive text as issued. Engraved title by Wolfgang Kilian, 366 engraved plates (on 367 sheets with the two plates of Lilium Martagon attached at an early date) by Wolfgang Kilian, Dominicus Custos, Raphael Custos, Georg Gärtner, Johannes Leypold, Levin van Hulsen, Friedrick van Hulsen, Peter Isselburg, Servatius Raeven, Heinrich Ulrich and possibly others, after Daniel Herzog, Georg Gärtner and others, engraved portraits and arms of Besler and Sebastian Schedel, ALL RICHLY COLOURED BY A CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN HAND.
Christies technical description of the book - which includes the names of those producing the plates.
This is another video by the Aboca Museum - a museum about herbs - which is about the garden, the book and how it was produced.

Images from the Hortus Eystettensis (The Garden of Eichstatt)

The emphasis in botanicals of previous centuries had been on medicinal and culinary herbs, and these had usually been depicted in a crude manner.

In terms of:
  • science: The images in a lot of herbals were often inadequate for identification.  They often tended towards crude rather than accurate portrayals
  • aesthetic:  drawings were not intended to be aesthetically pleasing.

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. It included a large number of flower bulbs - such as tulips
  • Most of the plants are depicted actual size or 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 prints chronicled the garden through the four seasons - and were ordered in the book according to the seasons.
  • In total, more than 1,000 flowers from 667 species were drawn
  • The species covered 349 species from Germany, 209 South and Southeast European origin, 63 Asian, 9 African and 23 American species
  • 374 folio size plates were created for the florilegium.
Subsequently, it became an important historical document as it recorded the introduction of various exotic species of flowers into Germany.

Seasons Within The Hortus Eystettensis


The illustrations are organised according to the four seasons, 

The book has 366 plates so that it had an illustrated plate for every day of the year - including leap years.  

However the plates don't quite match up with the days in a season.
  • Winter - 7 plates
  • Spring - 134 plates and 454 plants;
  • Summer - 184 plates and 505 plants;
  • Autumn - 42 plates and 98 plants

The plates illustrate - according today's classification systems - plants belonging to a total of 90 families and covering 340 genera.​
Picture
Hortus Eystettensis Plate 79: Late white tulip, Golden garlic, Mountain garlic
Picture
Dorea Narbonensium [Groundsel] and Lilium fatuum [Tawny day lily]; from the Hortus Eystettensis
Picture
Poma amoris fructu luteo. Melo Saccharinus variegatus, Pseudocolocynthis Pomiformis, from Hortus Eystettensis;
Picture
Basilius Besler, Hortus Eystettensis, Nuremberg 1613. Ouvrage illustré de botanique sur papier. Bibliothèque de l'Université de Liège, Wiki Loves Art, Liège, Belgique

Development of the Hortus Eystettensis

Editions of the Hortus Eystettensis
​
Besler project managed and worked on the production of the book for 16 years with a team of different people
  • artists created colour drawings on site or from specimens. The original drawings for the Hortus Eystettensis can now be found under the signature MS. 2370 in the University Library Erlangen.
  • A team of at least six engravers were then employed to translate the colour drawings made by Besler into black and white copperplate engravings which could be used for reproduction. Wolfgang Kilian was the lead engraver initially. Subsequently engraving moved to Nuremberg and the engravers included Johannes Leypold, Georg Gärtner, Levin and Friedrich van Huslen, Peter Isselburg, Hienrich Ulrich and Servatius Raeven.
  • Colourists would hand colour the engravings - The original colour drawings contained information indicating both the colour and the intensity to be used by the artists who would colour the engravings. The family business of Georg Mack was engaged to hand colour the first copies of ‘Hortus Eystettensis’. There's a copy of one of the first books coloured byGeorge Mack in the British Library.
  • Ludwig Jungermann wrote the botanical descriptions for the trade version for apothecaries and botanists
The work was first published in 1613. The total cost to the diocese was 17,920 florins.

The first edition printed in 1613 had two versions. It consisted of 367 copper engravings, with an average of three plants per page, so that a total of 1084 species were depicted.
  • A small high quality "princely gift" edition without text, printed only on one side was produced and hand coloured on high quality paper for a unit price of 500 florins. The hand colouring was the element which increased the price significantly
  • The second version was a black and white version with text. This was intended as a reference book for apothecaries and others. An edition of 300 was produced. This was initially priced at 35 but the price increased to 48 florins as available numbers dwindled. It took four years to sell. One of the problems with this edition is that the printing of words to describe the plants on the back of the pictures of the plants meant that the words showed through. This problem was remedied in different ways subsequent editions.

The second edition was printed in 1640. In this edition the back of the folio print was blank.

The third edition was printed in 1713. This also improved the quality and thickness of the paper used for printing the folio plates - and the text was again printed on the back of the print. These plates were reused again in 1750 but the resulting product did not sell well. The plates were subsequently melted down.

​In 1994, 329 of 366 plates were discovered in the archives of the Albertina Museum in Vienna.
Picture
[Mandrake] Mandragora foemina; [Lesser celandine or Buttercup] Chelidonium minus from Hortus Eystettensis
Picture
[Canary Islands Arborescent Houseleek] Sedum arborescens; [Multiflorous Striped Colchicum] Colchicum mixtum Autumnale; [Colchicum in Leaf and in Flower] Colchicum album et rub rum from Hortus Eystettensis
REFERENCE:
Digital Facsimile Copies​
Online Galleries of Prints - some of these relate to Galleries that are selling original engravings
Basilius Besler's Florilegium. The Book of Plants

RECOMMENDED: I own the 25th anniversary edition of this book and highly recommend the Taschen standards of reproduction.

​This is a huge book has got 540 pages. It's published by the German publisher Taschen and is very much in the style of a facsimile edition.

This is a link to my review of the book. Below that is a video showing you what the book looks like inside.
Making a Mark: Book Review: Besler's Book of Flowers and Plants
In my opinion, this is the sort of book which will appeal to a real fan of the history of botanical art. It's certainly very interesting from the point of view of studying classical portrayals of plants and flowers. I also found it really interesting to see the difference between the woodcuts seen in the book reviewed yesterday and how the nature of the illustrations changed as they started to use (1) copper engraving and (2) colour.​
Hardcover: 540 pages
Publisher: TASCHEN GmbH
Publication date: 25 Sept. 2015

​​ Visit the Garden at Eichstatt 
​

The Bastion Garden of Willibaldsburg Castle was laid out by the Bavarian Palace Department on the basis of the "Hortus Eystettensis", a collection of copperplate engravings published by Basilius Besler (1561-1629) in 1613, and was opened to the public in 1998. website
In 1998, a reconstruction of the original garden opened to the public in Eichstätt. ​
Address/Information: Burgstraße 19, 85072 Eichstätt
Telephone (0 84 21) 47 30
fax (0 84 21) 81 94

Opening hours
mid-April until mid-October:9 am-6 pm
Closed Mondays, closed from mid-October until mid-April
The flowers are planted according to their blooming seasons, as described in the book 

More about Famous Botanical Artists

all illustrations are sourced from Wikimedia Commons; all videos are from YouTube