Conrad Gessner

Swiss physician, bibliographer and naturalist (1516–1565)

Fame54.0
Momentum0.5
Switzerland rank#223

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Fame54.0
Momentum0.5
Switzerland rank#223
Writers rank#110
Wikipedia3.2K

Lived 1516–1565, aged 49Switzerland

Switzerland WritersWriter / Author

Wikipedia
56 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in Switzerland
#223
Writers
Era
1516–1565
Aged 49

Summary

Updated 2026-06-10

He tried to catalog everything — every book written, every animal known, every plant that grew. In 16th-century Zurich, Conrad Gessner built encyclopedic works so systematic they founded modern bibliography and zoology, then died of plague at 49 with his botanical opus unfinished.

Biography

About

Born poor in Zurich in 1516, Gessner's intellectual gifts were spotted early; his father and teachers pushed him through university to study languages, theology, and medicine. He became the city physician but spent his hours amassing knowledge: his Bibliotheca universalis (1545–1549) attempted to list every book ever written, his Historia animalium (1551–1558) did the same for the animal kingdom. He was often the first in Europe to describe a species in print — the tulip in 1559, among others. He was deep into a massive botanical text when plague took him on 13 December 1565, at 49. Plants and…

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