What is Conrad Gessner?
'''Conrad Gessner''' (or Konrad Gessner, 26 March 1516 – 13 December 1565) was a [[Switzerland|Swiss]] [[natural history|naturalist]] and [[bibliography|bibliographer]]. His five-volume ''Historiae animalium'' (1551–1558) is a forerunner of modern [[zoology]]. The [[flowering plant]] genus ''[[Gesneria]]'' is named after him. == Career == He studied at [[Strasbourg]], [[Bourges]] (1532–1533) and [[Paris]]. In 1535, religious unrest drove him back to [[Zürich]], where he made an unwise marriage. His friends came to his aid, enabled him to study at [[Basel]] (1536), and in 1537 obtained for him the professorship of [[Greek language|Greek]] at the newly founded academy of [[Lausanne]] (then belonging to Berne). Here he had leisure to devote himself to scientific studies, especially [[botany]]. In 1540–1541 he visited the famous medical university of [[Montpellier]], took his degree of doctor of medicine (1541) at Basel, and then settled down to practise at Zürich, where he obtained the post of lecturer in physics at the [[Carolinum]], the precursor of the [[University of Zürich]]. There, apart from a few journeys to foreign countries, and annual summer botanical journeys in his native land, he passed the remainder of his life. He devoted himself to preparing works on many subjects of different sorts. He died of the [[Bubonic plague|plague]], the year after his ennoblement. == Works == To his contemporaries he was best known as a botanist, though his botanical manuscripts were not published till long after his death (at [[Nuremberg]], 1751–1771, 2 vols. folio), he himself issuing only the ''Enchiridion historiae plantarum'' (1541) and the ''Catalogus plantarum'' (1542) in four languages. In 1545 he published his remarkable ''Bibliotheca universalis'' (ed. J. Simler 1574), supposedly a catalogue (in [[Latin]], Greek and [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]]) of all writers who had ever lived, with the titles of their works, etc. A second part, ''Pandectarium sive partitionum universalium Conradi Gesneri Ligurini libri xxi