When Prince-Bishop Johann Konrad von Gemmingen (1593/95-1612) undertook a radical renovation of the Willibaldsburg Castle, overlooking the Altmühl River in Eichstätt (Bavaria), he also created a magnificent palace garden around it. To preserve the garden for future generations—and to provide a permanent catalog of its contents that collected plants from the four seasons and presented them in that order—he commissioned the garden director, the Nuremberg apothecary Basilius Besler (1561-1629), and a team of engravers to immortalize its treasures in a collection of printed plates.
The result was the Hortus Eystettensis, published in Nuremberg in 1613. With its 367 hand-colored plates and detailed descriptions, it was a work of meticulous execution and spectacular diversity, notably expensive for its time. Since the garden contained plants imported from exotic places, the three volumes displayed a remarkable variety, with a total of 90 families and 340 genera. Due to the decorative and stylized execution of these illustrations, where plants begin to be seen in aesthetic terms rather than merely practical or medicinal ones, the book is considered a milestone in the art of botanical illustration. Although it was published before the appearance of standardized classification systems, Carl Linnaeus himself later described it as an “incomparable work.”
Besler’s catalog survived the gardens, which were destroyed in 1634 by invading Swedish troops during the Thirty Years’ War. However, a long remodeling project at the historic site culminated in the opening of the modern Bastionsgarten in 1998, which contains many of the plants shown in the Hortus Eystettensis.
This facsimile edition features high-quality reproductions of these stunning illustrations, based on the copy of the Hortus Eystettensis from the library of the University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, and is accompanied by detailed descriptions of the botanical, pharmaceutical, and symbolic significance of each plant and an appendix with essays that place the garden and the book in their historical contexts.
This edition presents a valuable work of botanical literature that, on the rare occasions an original copy appears on the market, can reach prices of over a million dollars at auction. In line with Besler’s original intention, this facsimile makes the garden accessible to a wider audience and preserves it for posterity.
