Conrad Gessner

Conrad Gessner was born on 26 March 1516, in Zürich, Switzerland, the son of Ursus Gessner, a poor Zürich furrier. His early life was one of poverty and hardship,^[3] but Gessner's father realized his talents, and sent him to live with and be schooled by a great uncle, who grew and collected medicinal herbs for a living. Here the boy became familiar with many plants and their medicinal purposes which led to a lifelong interest in natural history.

Gessner first attended the Carolinum in Zürich, then later entered the Fraumünster seminary. There he studied classical languages, appearing as Penia (Poverty) in Aristophanes' Plutus, at the age of 15.^[3] In school, he impressed his teachers so much that a few of them helped sponsor him so that he could further his education, including arranging a scholarship for him to attend university in France to study theology (1532–1533) at the age of 17. There he attended the University of Bourges and University of Paris. Religious persecution forced him to leave Paris for Strasbourg, but being unable to secure employment, he returned to Zürich.^[3] One of his teachers in Zürich acted as a foster father to him after the death of his father at the Battle of Kappel (1531), another provided him with three years of board and lodging, while yet another arranged his further education at the upper school in Strasbourg, the Strasbourg Academy. There he broadened his knowledge of ancient languages by studying Hebrew. In 1535, religious unrest drove him back to Zürich, where he made what some considered an imprudent marriage at the age of 19, of a woman from another poor family who had no dowry.^[3] Although some of his friends again came to his aid, he was appointed to obtaining a teaching position for him, this was in the lowest class and attracted a stipend barely more than a pittance. However, he then obtained a paid leave of absence to study medicine at the University of Basel (1536).^[3][4]

Throughout his life Gessner was interested in natural history, and collected specimens and descriptions of wildlife through travel and extensive correspondence with other friends and scholars. His approach to research consisted of four main components: observation, dissection, travel to distant lands, and accurate description. This rising observational approach was new to Renaissance scholars because people usually relied completely upon Classical writers for their research. He died of the plague, the year after his ennoblement on 13 December 1565.^[5]

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Carolinum, Zürich

Carolinum, Zürich

The Carolinum Zürich is the predecessor educational institution of the theological faculty of the University of Zürich, established in 1525. As building, it is part of the former cloister of the Grossmünster Chorherrenstift in Zürich, Switzerland. Grossmünster and Carolinum are listed in the Swiss inventory of cultural property of national and regional significance as a Class A object.

Fraumünster

Fraumünster

The Fraumünster is a church in Zürich which was built on the remains of a former abbey for aristocratic women which was founded in 853 by Louis the German for his daughter Hildegard. He endowed the Benedictine convent with the lands of Zürich, Uri, and the Albis forest, and granted the convent immunity, placing it under his direct authority. Today, it belongs to the Evangelical Reformed Church of the canton of Zürich and is one of the four main churches of Zürich, the others being the Grossmünster, Prediger and St. Peter's churches.

Penia

Penia

In Plato's Symposium, Penae or Penia was the personification of poverty and need. She married Porus at Aphrodite's birthday and was sometimes considered the mother of Eros. Her sisters are Amechania and Ptocheia. Penia was also mentioned by other ancient Greek writers such as Alcaeus, Theognis, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Plutarch, and Philostratus.

Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes, son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion, was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete. These provide the most valuable examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and are used to define it, along with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries.

Plutus (play)

Plutus (play)

Plutus is an Ancient Greek comedy by the playwright Aristophanes, which was first produced in 388 BCE. A political satire on contemporary Athens, it features the personified god of wealth Plutus. Reflecting the development of Old Comedy towards New Comedy, it uses such familiar character types as the stupid master and the insubordinate slave to attack the morals of the time.

University of Bourges

University of Bourges

The University of Bourges was a university located in Bourges, France. It was founded by Louis XI in 1463 and closed during the French Revolution.

University of Paris

University of Paris

The University of Paris, known metonymically as the Sorbonne, was the leading university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 under the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated with the cathedral school of Notre Dame de Paris, it was considered the second-oldest university in Europe.

Strasbourg

Strasbourg

Strasbourg is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the European Parliament. Located at the border with Germany in the historic region of Alsace, it is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin department.

Dowry

Dowry

A dowry is a payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower. While bride price or bride service is a payment by the groom, or his family, to the bride, or her family, dowry is the wealth transferred from the bride, or her family, to the groom, or his family. Similarly, dower is the property settled on the bride herself, by the groom at the time of marriage, and which remains under her ownership and control.

University of Basel

University of Basel

The University of Basel is a university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest surviving universities. The university is traditionally counted among the leading institutions of higher learning in the country.

Bubonic plague

Bubonic plague

Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting, as well as swollen and painful lymph nodes occurring in the area closest to where the bacteria entered the skin. Acral necrosis, the dark discoloration of skin, is another symptom. Occasionally, swollen lymph nodes, known as "buboes", may break open.

Ennoblement

Ennoblement

Ennoblement is the conferring of nobility—the induction of an individual into the noble class. Currently only a few kingdoms still grant nobility to people; among them Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Vatican. Depending on time and region, various laws have governed who could be ennobled and how. Typically, nobility was conferred on individuals who had assisted the sovereign. In some countries, this degenerated into the buying of patents of nobility, whereby rich commoners could purchase a title of nobility.

Conrad Gessner was a Renaissance polymath, a physician, philosopher, encyclopaedist, bibliographer, philologist, natural historian and illustrator.^[2] In 1537, at the age of 21, his publication of a Graecolatin dictionary led to his sponsors obtained for him the professorship of Greek at the newly founded academy of Lausanne (then belonging to Bern). Here he had leisure to devote himself to scientific studies, especially botany,^[6] and earn money to further his medical studies.

After three years of teaching at Lausanne, Gessner was able to travel to the medical school at the University of Montpellier, where he received his doctoral degree (1541) from Basel. He then returned to Zürich to practice medicine, which he continued to do for the rest of his life. There he was also appointed to the post of lecturer of Aristotelean physics at the Carolinum, the precursor of the University of Zürich.

After 1554 he became the city physician (Stadtarzt). In addition to his duties there, and apart from a few journeys to foreign countries, and annual summer botanical journeys in his native land, and illnesses, he was able to devote himself to research and writing. His expeditions frequently involved visits to mountainous country, below the snow-line. Although primarily for purposes of botanical collection, he also extolled mountain climbing for the sake of exercise and enjoyment of the beauties of nature. In 1541 he prefixed to his treatise on milk and milk products, Libellus de lacte et operibus lactariis^[7] a letter addressed to his friend Jacob Avienus (Vogel)^[8][b] of Glarus on the wonders to be found among the mountains, declaring his love for them, and his firm resolve to climb at least one mountain every year, not only to collect flowers, but in order to exercise his body. In 1555 he issued his narrative Descriptio Montis Fracti sive Montis Pilati^[10] of his excursion to the Gnepfstein (1920 m), the lowest point in the Pilatus chain.^[6][4]

Gessner is credited with a number of the first descriptions of species in Europe, both animals such as the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), guinea pig (Cavia porcellus)^[11] and turkey (Meleagris),^[12] as well as plants such as the tulip (Tulipa gesneriana). He first saw a tulip in April 1559, growing in the garden of the magistrate Johann Heinrich Herwart at Augsberg, and called it Tulipa turcarum, the Turkish tulip.^[13][14] He is also credited with being the first person to describe brown adipose tissue, in 1551,^[15] in 1565 the first to document the pencil,^[16] and in 1563 among the first Europeans to write about the effects of tobacco.^[17]

Publications

Fragaria vesca (wild strawberry), from Gessner's Historia plantarum

Gessner's first work was a Latin-Greek Dictionary, the Lexicon Graeco-Latinum (1537),^[18] compiled during his studies in Basel. This was a revision of an original work by the Italian cleric, Varinus Phavorinus or Guarino of Favera (d. 1537), Magnum ac perutile dictionarium (1523).^[3][9] Over his lifetime he was able to produce some 70 publications on many different subjects.

His next major work was his unique Bibliotheca (1545),^[19] a landmark in the history of bibliography, in which he set out to catalogue all the writers who had ever lived and their works.^[9] In addition to his monumental work on animal life, the Historiae animalium (1551–1558),^[20] he amassed a very large collection of notes and wood engravings of plants, but only published two botanical works in his lifetime, Historia plantarum et vires (1541)^[21] and the Catalogus plantarum (1542)^[22] in four languages. It was in the last decade of his life that he began to compile his major botanical work, Historia plantarum. Although he died prior to its completion, his work was utilised by many other authors over the next two centuries, but was finally published in 1754.^[23][4]

Not content with scientific works, Gessner was also active as a linguist and bibliographer, putting forth in 1555 his book entitled Mithridates. De differentiis linguarum [...],^[24] an account of about 130 known languages, with the Lord's Prayer in twenty-two languages.^[6] He also produced edited works of a number of classical authors (see Edited works), including Claudius Aelianus (1556)^[25] and Marcus Aurelius (1559).^[26][4]

A number of other works appeared after his death (posthumously), some long after (see Posthumous works). His work on insects was edited by various authors, including Thomas Penny, until Thomas Muffet brought it to publication as Insectorum sive minimorum animalium theatrum (1634),^[27] finally appearing in English translation as The Theatre of Insects in Edward Topsell's History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents (1658).^{[28][29][30][31]}

Bibliotheca universalis (1545–1549)

In 1545, after four years of research, Gessner published his remarkable Bibliotheca universalis,^[19] an exhaustive catalogue of all known works in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, of all writers who had ever lived, with the titles of their works, and brief annotations.^[6] The work, which included his own bio-bibliography, listed some three thousand authors alphabetically, and was the first modern bibliography published since the invention of printing. Through it, Gessner became known as the "father of bibliography." In all, about twelve thousand titles were included.

A second part, a thematic index to the work, Pandectarum sive partitionum universalium libri xxi,^[32] appeared in 1548. Although the title indicated that twenty one parts were intended, only nineteen books were included. Part 20, intended to include his medical work, was never finished and part 21, a theological encyclopaedia, was published separately in 1549.

Historia animalium (1551–1558)

Porcupine, Historiae animalium, 1551

Gessner's great zoological work, Historia animalium,^[20] is a 4,500-page encyclopedia of animals that appeared in Zürich in 4 volumes between 1551 and 1558: quadrupeds, amphibians, birds, and fishes. A fifth folio on snakes was issued in 1587. A German translation of the first 4 volumes titled Thierbůch was published in Zürich in 1563. This book was considered to be the first modern zoological work. It built a bridge between ancient, medieval and modern science.

In Historia animalium Gessner combines data from old sources, such as the Old Testament, Aristotle, Pliny, folklore, and medieval bestiaries, adding his own observations. He created a new, comprehensive description of the Animal Kingdom. This was the first attempt by anyone to describe many animals accurately. The book unlike many works of its time was illustrated with hand-colored woodcuts drawn from personal observations by Gessner and his colleagues.^[33]

Even though he sought to distinguish observed facts from myths and popular errors and was known for his accurate depiction of many animals in Historia animalium, he also included many fictional animals such as the Unicorn and the Basilisk, which he had only heard about from medieval bestiaries. But when Gessner doubted the accuracy of the opinions he relayed in his own writings, or the validity of the illustrations he included, he clearly said so. Besides any plant or animal's potential advantage to people, Gessner was interested in learning about them because of the moral lessons they could teach and the divine truths they might tell. He went into as much detail about some unreal animals as he did about real ones.^[34] Later in 1556 he also combined real and fictional creatures in his edition of the works of Claudius Aelianus.

Historia animalium includes sketches for many well-known animals, and some fictional ones, including unicorns and mermaids. He accomplished many of his works in a large part due to the web of acquaintances he established with leading naturalists throughout Europe, who included John Caius, English court physician to the Tudors and second founder of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Not only did they send him their ideas, but also sent him plants, animals and gems. He returned the favor – and kept helpful specimens coming – by naming plants after correspondents and friends.^[34]

Historia plantarum (unfinished)

Over his lifetime, Gessner amassed a considerable collection of plants and seeds and made extensive notes and wood engravings. In the last decade of his life he began to compile his major botanical work, Historia plantarum. although he died prior to its publication his materials were utilised by many subsequent authors for the next two hundred years, these included some 1,500 engravings of plants and their important flowers and seeds, most of which were original. The scale and scientific rigour of these were unusual for the time, and Gessner was a skilled artist, producing detailed drawings of specific plant parts that illustrated their characteristics, with extensive marginal notation discussing their growth form and habitation.^[35] Finally, the work was published in 1754.^[23][4]

Censorship

There was extreme religious tension at the time that Historia animalium came out. Under Pope Paul IV the Pauline Index felt that the religious convictions of an author contaminated all his writings.^[36] Since Gessner was a Protestant his works were included in this index of prohibited books. Even though religious tensions were high, Gessner maintained friendships on both sides of the Catholic-Protestant divide. In fact, Catholic booksellers in Venice protested the Inquisition's blanket ban on Gessner's books, and some of his work was eventually allowed after it had been "cleaned" of its doctrinal errors.^[34]

List of selected publications

 see Wellisch (1975), BHL (2017)

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Polymath

Polymath

A polymath is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems.

University of Lausanne

University of Lausanne

The University of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switzerland, and one of the oldest universities in the world to be in continuous operation. As of fall 2017, about 15,000 students and 3,300 employees studied and worked at the university. Approximately 1,500 international students attend the university, which has a wide curriculum including exchange programs with other universities.

Lausanne

Lausanne

Lausanne is the capital and largest city of the Swiss French speaking canton of Vaud. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway between the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and facing the French town of Évian-les-Bains across the lake. Lausanne is located 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva, the nearest major city.

Bern

Bern

Bern or Berne is the de facto capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city". With a population of about 133,000, Bern is the fifth-most populous city in Switzerland, behind Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Lausanne. The Bern agglomeration, which includes 36 municipalities, had a population of 406,900 in 2014. The metropolitan area had a population of 660,000 in 2000.

University of Montpellier

University of Montpellier

The University of Montpellier is a public research university located in Montpellier, in south-east of France. Established in 1220, the University of Montpellier is one of the oldest universities in the world.

Carolinum, Zürich

Carolinum, Zürich

The Carolinum Zürich is the predecessor educational institution of the theological faculty of the University of Zürich, established in 1525. As building, it is part of the former cloister of the Grossmünster Chorherrenstift in Zürich, Switzerland. Grossmünster and Carolinum are listed in the Swiss inventory of cultural property of national and regional significance as a Class A object.

City physician

City physician

City physician was a historical title in the Late Middle Ages for a physician appointed by the city council. The city physician was responsible for the health of the population, particularly the poor, and the sanitary conditions in the city. His duties also included the supervision of pharmacies and the supervision of those engaged in medical tasks, such as midwives and barber surgeons. In addition, he had forensic duties such as assessing the injuries of living persons, external postmortem examinations, and conducting autopsies in cases of non-natural and unexplained deaths. In times of epidemic, many city physicians published small, printed books of guidelines.

Glarus

Glarus

Glarus is the capital of the canton of Glarus in Switzerland. Since 1 January 2011, the municipality Glarus incorporates the former municipalities of Ennenda, Netstal and Riedern.

Brown rat

Brown rat

The brown rat, also known as the common rat, street rat, sewer rat, wharf rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat and Norwegian rat, is a widespread species of common rat. One of the largest muroids, it is a brown or grey rodent with a head and body length of up to 28 cm (11 in) long, and a tail slightly shorter than that. It weighs between 140 and 500 g. Thought to have originated in northern China and neighbouring areas, this rodent has now spread to all continents except Antarctica, and is the dominant rat in Europe and much of North America. With rare exceptions, the brown rat lives wherever humans live, particularly in urban areas.

Guinea pig

Guinea pig

The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig, also known as the cavy or domestic cavy, is a species of rodent belonging to the genus Cavia in the family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the word cavy to describe the animal, while in scientific and laboratory contexts, it is far more commonly referred to by the common name guinea pig. Despite their common name, guinea pigs are not native to Guinea, nor are they closely related biologically to pigs, and the origin of the name is still unclear. They originated in the Andes of South America. Studies based on biochemistry and hybridization suggest they are domesticated animals that do not exist naturally in the wild, descendants of a closely related cavy species such as C. tschudii. They were originally domesticated as livestock for a source of meat, and are still consumed in some parts of the world.

Turkey (bird)

Turkey (bird)

The turkey is a large bird in the genus Meleagris, native to North America. There are two extant turkey species: the wild turkey of eastern and central North America and the ocellated turkey of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Males of both turkey species have a distinctive fleshy wattle, called a snood, that hangs from the top of the beak. They are among the largest birds in their ranges. As with many large ground-feeding birds, the male is bigger and much more colorful than the female.

Tulipa gesneriana

Tulipa gesneriana

Tulipa gesneriana, the Didier's tulip or garden tulip, is a species of plant in the lily family, cultivated as an ornamental in many countries because of its large, showy flowers. This tall, late-blooming species has a single blooming flower and linear or broadly lanceolate leaves. This is a complex hybridized neo-species, and can also be called Tulipa × gesneriana. Most of the cultivars of tulip are derived from Tulipa gesneriana. It has become naturalised in parts of central and southern Europe and scattered locations in North America.

Title page from The new Iewell of Health, 1576

Gessner has been described as the father of modern scientific botany and zoology, and the father of modern bibliography. To his contemporaries he was best known as a botanist.^[4] Despite his traveling ways and the job of maintaining his own gardens, Gesner probably spent most of his time inside his own extensive library.^[37] He listed among his History of Animals sources more than 80 Greek authors and at least 175 Latin authors, as well as works by German, French, and Italian authors. He even attempted to establish a "universal library" of all books in existence. The project might sound strange to the modern mind, but Gessner invested tremendous energy in the project. He sniffed through remote libraries along with the collections of the Vatican Library and catalogs of printers and booksellers. By assembling this universal library of information, Gessner put together a database centuries before computers would ease such work. He cut relevant passages out of books, grouped the cuttings by general theme, subdivided the groups into more specific categories, and boxed them. He could then retrieve and arrange the cuttings as needed. In the words of science writer Anna Pavord, "He was a one-man search engine, a 16th-century Google with the added bonus of critical evaluation."^[38]

To his contemporaries, Gessner was known as "the Swiss Pliny." According to legend, when he knew his time was near, he asked to be taken to his library where he had spent so much of his life, to die among his favorite books. At the time of his death, Gesner had published 72 books, and written 18 more unpublished manuscripts. His work on plants was not published until centuries after his death.^[34]

In 1576 George Baker published a translation of the Evonymus of Conrad Gessner under the title of The Newe Jewell of Health, wherein is contained the most excellent Secretes of Physicke and Philosophie divided into fower bookes. Amongst his students was Felix Plater, who became a professor of medicine, and accumulated many plant specimens, but also illustrations of animals used in Historiae animalium.^[39] A year after his death, his friend Josias Simler published a biography of Gessner.^[40][41] Gessner and others founded the Physikalische Gesellschaft in Zurich, which later became the Naturforschende Gesellschaft in Zürich (NGZH) in 1746, to promote the study of natural sciences. Today it is one of the oldest Swiss scientific societies. The society's annual publication, the Neujahrsblatt der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Zürich was devoted to a biography of Gessner in 1966, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of his death.^[42]

Eponomy

In 1753 Carl Linnaeus named Tulipa gesneriana, the type species of the Tulipa genus, in his honour.^[43][13] The flowering plant genus Gesneria and its family Gesneriaceae are named after him. A genus of moths is also named Gesneria after him.

Memorials

Conrad Gessner memorial, Old Botanical Garden, Zürich

• The Gessner herbal garden at the Old Botanical Garden, Zürich, is named after him, and there is a bust in the garden in his memory (see image)
• The cloister in the Carolinum, Zürich in the Grossmünster church, where Gessner is buried, also houses a herbal garden dedicated to him.^[44]
• Gessner was featured on the 50 Swiss francs banknotes issued between 1978 and 1994.
• On 16 March 2016 the State Museum in Zürich, in close collaboration with Zurich’s Central Library (Zentralbibliothek Zürich), dedicated a special exhibition to Gessner in celebration of the 500th anniversary of his birth.^[45]

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George Baker (surgeon)

George Baker (surgeon)

George Baker (1540–1600), was an English surgeon notable for writing and translating a number of early medical texts.

Naturforschende Gesellschaft in Zürich

Naturforschende Gesellschaft in Zürich

Naturforschende Gesellschaft in Zürich is a Swiss scientific society, founded in 1746 for the purposes of promoting the study of the natural sciences. Prior to that it was known as the Physikalische Gesellschaft, originating in the sixteenth century, when Conrad Gessner and his colleagues first established it in Zürich. As such, it is one of the oldest scientific societies in Switzerland. The society states it mission as "Accessing the 'exact knowledge of nature' through meticulous observations and experiments, and to foster public understanding of the natural sciences, fundamental and applied". To this end it organizes free lectures and excursions and awards an annual prize for high school science projects (NGZH-Jugendpreis). As of 2016, there were 350 members, and the president was Fritz Gassmann. Within the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences, the NGZH is a member organisation of the Natural Sciences Platform. The society maintains a botanical garden based on Conrad Gessner's original herbarium and library and carries out experiments. It is associated with both the University of Zurich and the Institute of Technology

Carl Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin; his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus and, after his 1761 ennoblement, as Carolus a Linné.

Genus

Genus

Genus is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus.E.g. Panthera leo (lion) and Panthera onca (jaguar) are two species within the genus Panthera. Panthera is a genus within the family Felidae.

Flowering plant

Flowering plant

Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae, commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ἀγγεῖον /angeion and σπέρμα / sperma ('seed'), meaning those plants that produce their seeds enclosed within a fruit. They are by far the most diverse group of land plants with 64 orders, 416 families, approximately 13,000 known genera and 300,000 known species. Angiosperms were formerly called Magnoliophyta.

Gesneria

Gesneria

Gesneria is a genus of approximately 50 species in the flowering plant family Gesneriaceae. Except for two or three odd South American species, all are native to islands of the Caribbean. The genus is classified in the tribe Gesnerieae along with the genera Bellonia, Pheidonocarpa, and Rhytidophyllum. Gesneria species are usually woody shrubs or subshrubs, and are unusual in the family in having alternately arranged leaves. A complete list of the accepted species and their synonyms can be found in the Smithsonian Institution's World Checklist of Gesneriaceae.

Gesneriaceae

Gesneriaceae

Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World and the New World, with a very small number extending to temperate areas. Many species have colorful and showy flowers and are cultivated as ornamental plants.

Gesneria (moth)

Gesneria (moth)

Gesneria is a genus of moths of the family Crambidae.

Old Botanical Garden, Zürich

Old Botanical Garden, Zürich

The Old Botanical Garden is a botanical garden and arboretum in the Swiss city of Zürich. The garden is, among the neighbored Schanzengraben moat and the Bauschänzli bastion, one of the last remains of the Baroque fortifications of Zürich, that was begun in 1642.

Cloister

Cloister

A cloister is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a warm southern flank, usually indicates that it is part of a monastic foundation, "forming a continuous and solid architectural barrier... that effectively separates the world of the monks from that of the serfs and workmen, whose lives and works went forward outside and around the cloister."

Carolinum, Zürich

Carolinum, Zürich

The Carolinum Zürich is the predecessor educational institution of the theological faculty of the University of Zürich, established in 1525. As building, it is part of the former cloister of the Grossmünster Chorherrenstift in Zürich, Switzerland. Grossmünster and Carolinum are listed in the Swiss inventory of cultural property of national and regional significance as a Class A object.

Grossmünster

Grossmünster

The Grossmünster is a Romanesque-style Protestant church in Zürich, Switzerland. It is one of the four major churches in the city. Its congregation forms part of the Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zürich. The core of the present building near the banks of the Limmat was constructed on the site of a Carolingian church, which was, according to legend, originally commissioned by Charlemagne. Construction of the present structure commenced around 1100 and it was inaugurated around 1220.