In the year 1545 (leaner journeyed to Venice and Augsburg, whero he made the acquaintance of many learned and meritorious men ; and this leads us to the literary works which have justly rendered Gesner'a name fatuous, for then it was he commenced the publication of his 'Bibliotheca Univerealis,' a grand design, and the first and hitherto the most complete bibliographical work upon a large scale. Gesner's 'Bibliotheca' was a catalogue of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew works, with criticisms, and frequently specimens of the author quoted, and appeared in 1 voL folio (1545, ZUrich). The volume Pandectarum, sive Partitionum Universalium' (1548) may be considered as the second of the 'Bibliothece Gesner never published the book relating to medical works, because he did not consider it to be sufficiently perfect. An abridgment of the Bibliotheca' by Lyeesthenes, and completed by Simler nud J. J. Fries, was published in 1583 (folio). dialler's 'Bibliotheca Botanica,' and Bibliotheca Anatomica; were probably imagined from Gesuer's work.
But the Animalium' must be considered the' great work of Cleaner. These well-filled folio volumes appeared at Zurich in the following order :—Viviparous Quadrupeds (1551); Oviparous Quadru peds (1554); Birds (1555); Fishes and other Aquatic Animals (1556) —this volume contains the labours of his contemporaries and friends Below and Rondelet, with some additions by himself; Serpents (post humous and published by James Carron, a Frankfurt physician, 1587)— this is more rare than tho other volumes, and there is usually added a treatise on the Scorpion, posthumous also, and published in tbo last mentioned year at Zurich by Caspar Wolf. There is also an edition in German. Of the Insects, some inedited figures of butterflies aro all that are known; but that Cleaner bad not neglected this class of animals is manifest from Mouffet's Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatre= ; olim ab Edoardo Wottouo, Conrad° Gesnero, Thomaquo Penni°, inchoatum' Lend., 1634), which is partly made up from Gesner's fragmeuts. The work does not comprise the Mollusks and Testaceans as a class.
All agree that this compilation, having for its object nothing less than a general history of animated nature, concentrating and critically revising all that had been done before the time of the author, enriched with his own knowledge, and illustrated by many incidental remarks iu the departments of botany and medicine, might have been considered as evidence of most persevering and praiseworthy industry, if it had been the productiou of a recluse whose long life had been entirely spent iu the task ; whereas it was only ono of many books written by a man who gained his subsistence by perhaps the most harassiug and time-consuming of all professions, and who died in harness when ha was not forty-nine years old.
Gustier, in this work, which he carried out to completion as far as the Vertebrate are concerned, followed the method of Aristotle; autl though there is not any establishment of genera, it may he euli as the principal source of morn modern zoology, flew which succeeding writers drew largely, and of which their publications mainly consisted. Thus it was copied in many parts, almost literally, by Aldrovandus ; and Jonston's Historia Naturalis ' is little more than an abridgment of it.
Gesner's Ilistorim' were compressed and appeared limier the titles of Iconea Anitnalium; &c. This book is much more common than the original.
Passing by the various learned treatises that flowed from Gesner's prolific pen, we must notice the complete translation of the works of sElian (1556). Gesner's notes also appear in the edition of Gronovius (London, 1744), &c.
This extraordinary man is next presented to us in another point of view ; for he is said to have designed and painted more than 1500 plants. A large share of the 1500 figures prepared by Gesner for his ' History of Plants,' and left at his death, passed into the 'Epitome Matthioli,' published by Camerarius in 1586; and in the same year, as also in a second edition in 1590, they were used as illustrations of an abridged translation of Matthiolus, bearing the name of the Germau HerbaL' The same blocks were used by Offenbach (1609) for the 'Herbal of Caster Durantes,' printed at Frankfurt, and com prising 918 of Geaner's. After the death of Camerarius, Goerlin, a bookseller of Ulm, purchased the blocks, and they embellished the Parnassus Medicinalis Illustratue of Becker (Ulm, 1633). In 1678 they found a place in Bernard Verzacha's 'German Herbal ; ' and they appeared agaiu in the Theatrum Botanicum ' (Basel, 1696), and in an edition of that work so late as 1744.
Besides the above, Omer is said to have left five volumes, cou sisting entirely of figures, which, together with his botanical works iu manuscript, became at last the property of Trew of Nurnberg, and were published under the care of Dr. Schmiedel, physician to the margrave of Anspach (Nurnberg, 2 vols. folio, 1754-70).
In closing our notice of this amiable, learned, and industrious man, it may not be uninteresting to state that, according to Haller, it is probable that Conrad Gesner was the first short-sighted person who aided the defect of his eye with concave glasses. k']umier dedicated to him a genus of plants of the family Campanulacem; under the name of 'Geauera.'