Crosswort, Stinking Iris and Bur Parsley (Cruciata, Spatula Foetida & Caucalis Dodnei)

The Hortus Eystettensis, Latin for 'The Garden of Eichstätt', was commissioned by Johann Conrad von Gemmingen, Prince-Bishop of Eichstätt, to document the extraordinary garden he had assembled at Willibaldsburg Castle in Bavaria. Basilius Besler, a Nuremberg apothecary and botanist, supervised the project over sixteen years, coordinating a team of engravers to produce 374 folio plates depicting more than a thousand plant species arranged by the four seasons. Published in 1613, the completed work stood as the largest and most ambitious florilegium produced to that date, with the deluxe hand-colored edition, of which only a small number were produced, commanding prices equivalent to a craftsman's annual wage. This plate, appearing in Volume I, captures plants that were novelties to northern European gardens: the iris, only recently arriving from Mediterranean and Near Eastern sources, carried with it associations of medicinal potency and courtly prestige that the Prince-Bishop was eager to project. The Hortus Eystettensis belongs to a pivotal moment in the history of natural philosophy, when systematic visual documentation was beginning to displace purely textual herbals as the primary vehicle for botanical knowledge; Besler's project sits precisely at that threshold, its rigorous observation filtered through the aesthetic conventions of late Renaissance printmaking.