1. Hyacinthus Orientalis.

Basi Besler (1561 - 1628)

Nuremberg apothecary and botanist, famous for grand botanical publication, Hortus Eystettensis (The Garden at Eichstätt). Born on February 13, 1561, in Nuremberg, Germany, Besler was the son of Michael Besler. He married Rosine Flock on January 31, 1585, and later wed Susanne Schmidt on December 1, 1596, with whom he had 16 children. Besler was elected to the city council in 1594. In 1589, Besler established a pharmacy called Zum Marienbild at Nuremberg's Hay Market. He also created his own botanical garden and collection of specimens, which earned him a strong reputation in botanical circles. He became the curator for Johann Konrad von Gemmingen (1561–1612), the Prince-bishop of Eichstätt, garden in Bavaria. This garden, known as the Eichstätt Garden, was the greatest German garden of its timew and renowned for its botanical diversity and was comparable to the Hortus Botanicus Leiden in early European botanical gardens outside Italy. The Eichstätt Garden was situated around the bishop's palace, Willibaldsburg, on a hill overlooking the town. The garden's care was entrusted to Besler after Camerarius' death in 1598. Despite being looted by Swedish troops in 1633-4, the gardens were eventually restored and opened to the public in 1998. The Hortus Eystettensis is pictorial record of the flowers grown in the greatest German garden of its time, that of the Prince Bishop of Eichstätt, Johann Conrad von Gemmingen. As part of a radical building programme at his seat, the Willibaldsburg castle overlooking the river Altmühl, the Prince Bishop created an extensive pleasure garden comprising eight separate gardens, each staffed with its own gardeners and each filled with flowers from a different country, imported through the international centres of Amsterdam, Antwerp and Brussels; the Prince Bishop boasted of having tulips in 500 colours. Painted halls and pleasure rooms further adorned the gardens. The great German botanist, Joachim Camerarius the Younger, advised the Prince Bishop on the garden's early design. After Camerarius's death,  it was Besler who undertook immortalising the garden in detailed and delicate engravings for the year-round enjoyment of his patron and for posterity in the Hortus Eystettensis. Flowers were drawn from life with flower boxes sent to Nuremberg so that artists there could work from fresh specimens, with the result that these plant portraits serve both as documentation and pleasure; here is a garden made perennial and evergreen. Besler died in Nuremberg on March 13, 1629.

View other items by Basi Besler