Conrad Gessner, polymath, bibliographer, classicist, natural philopher and natural theologian, was an intellectual giant of his day. Among a host of other things, his Historiae Animalium is considered the beginning of modern zoology and his unfinished Historia Plantarum the beginning of modern plant geography. Yet despite all this, no biography of him has appeared in the English language – well, not until mid-2023 with the publication of Dr. Urs B. Leu’s Conrad Gessner (1516–1565), Universal Scholar and Natural Scientist of the Renaissance.
Originally published in German in under the title Conrad Gessner (1516-1565): Universalgelehrter und Naturforscher der Renaissance, this new English language translation by Bill C. Ray makes Dr. Leu’s vitally important study of Gessner’s life and work available to all interested English-speaker who are not sufficiently – or at all – fluent in German to read it in the original.
Dr. Leu, a noted historian of science and director of the rare book department at Zentralbibliothek Zürich with an extensive list of published work about Gessner, presents the Sixteenth-century polymath as the genius as well as the often contradictory (at least to our own modern sensibilities) individual that he was. He explores Gessner’s early life, studies, and marriage, as well as his works in natural philosophy, medicine, natural theology, botany, philology, and Earth sciences.
As Gessner is one of those cornerstone figures of Early Modern natural philosophy whose life and work are not as readily known to most, including even a fair number interested in the subject, the publication of this newly translated biography of him presents a superb opportunity to discover, or improve one’s knowledge of, this remarkable man and his work.
Nota bene: this English language translation of Dr. Leu’s original book under the title Conrad Gessner (1516–1565); Universal Scholar and Natural Scientist of the Renaissance is published by Brill as volume 38 in the Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy and Science, a series well worth further investigation by those interested in the subject.
