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Conrad Gesner's 'Historiae Animalium' ('Accounts of Animals')

escargot

Disciple of Marduk
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I'm sure everyone here who's interested in early zoology knows all about Conrad Gesner. We've grown up with his meticulous if fantastical illustrations.

In the week I popped to Oxford with Escet for dinner at High Table with the College President and others, including a Professor who's doing research into conditions on Mars. As you do. :cool:

As Escet is friendly with the college librarian, she kindly opened the college's Old Library for us so we could inspect the ancient tomes.

On display was Conrad Gesner's 'Historiae Animalium' ('Accounts of Animals'). I took photos and touched the book with my bare hands.

(You can do that now, it seems. Curators used to have to wear cotton gloves but the new thinking is that as they make the hands less sensitive there's a risk of damage to the paper. Clean bare hands are now acceptable.)

From Wikipedia -

in 1551–58 and 1587, is an encyclopedic "inventory of renaissance zoology" by Conrad Gessner (1516–1565). Gessner was a medical doctor and professor at the Carolinum in Zürich, the precursor of the University of Zurich. The Historia animalium is the first modern zoological work that attempts to describe all the animals known, and the first bibliography of natural history writings. The five volumes of natural history of animals cover more than 4500 pages.[1]

So of course I took photos. They're nothing special, just snaps of the pages, but they're of an edition of the original book which I've personally mauled. :D

Photos to follow when my MacBook starts behaving, if anyone'd like to see them.[/url]
 
Here's the info sheet about the book in the Library.

As you can see, no rostrum cameras were harmed in this production. ;)
 

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