the first great florilegium

First edition of the first great florilegium, 'one of the greatest flower books ever produced in any country' (de Belder), printed in an edition of only 300 copies. Complete examples (as here) are rare, with only five copies appearing in recent auction records, at Sothebys in 1984, 2000, and 2004, and Christie's in 2008 and 2022.

The Hortus Eystettensis was overseen by Nuremberg apothecary Basil Besler, who had been put in charge of the celebrated garden of Johann Konrad von Gemmingen, Prince Bishop of Eichstätt. Gemmingen spent three thousand florins on the book's production, which took sixteen years, with Besler himself making the drawings and a number of engravers employed, including Wolfgang Kilian, Raphael Custos, and Friedrich van Hulsen. The final result is 'splended in its array of large drawings, magnificent as a record of the plants in a German garden in the beginning of the seventeenth century' and 'notable among the plates is the two-storied treatment of the Martagon Lily' (Hunt Botanical Catalogue 430). The contents are divided by season and depict over 1,000 flowers of 667 different species, many of which are exotics appearing in print for the first time. In addition to flowers, numerous types of fruits and vegetables are depicted, including melons, tomatoes, artichokes, eggplants, peppers, and prickly pears.

Bibliographically, the Hortus Eystettensis is unusual. Though typically described as a large or atlas folio, it is actually a volume of broadsides with the descriptions printed on the rectos, and the rectos signed, 'queerly enough, according to the particular number of the ordo or part and its alphabetical position in the part' (Hunt).

First edition, one of only 300 copies; 4 parts in 2 vols, large folio (though bound as single sheets); 366 engraved plates of which 1 double-page, engraved title, 4 subtitles, and portrait with coat of arms, slight loss from the corner of plate 15, Ai, and Bi, professional repairs to leaves 1-7, the final two leaves, and plate 181, which have all also been professionally cleaned, also repaired tears to Aa11 and Cc13, and leaf Ii12 cleaned; rebound to style in calf with contemporary endpapers, gilt floral tools to the spine compartments and corners.

Nissen 158; Pritzel 745; Hunt 430 (1713 edition); Blunt, pp. 95-97; Hans Baier (Aus dem Antiquariat), n. 95, 1970, pp. 273-280; Coats (The Book of Flowers), 31.