Johann Bauhin, Historia plantarum universalis – 1650
- Category: book
- Argument: botany
- Author: Jean Bauhin (1541-1613)
- Year: 1650-51
- Origin:Switzerland
- Material: paper
- Technique: print, engrawing
- Dimensions AxL: –
- Located in: Private Apartments, Palatine Library
Biography
Johann (or Jean) Bauhin (12 December 1541 – 26 October 1613) was a Swiss botanist, born in Basel. He was the son of physician Jean Bauhin and the brother of physician and botanist Gaspard Bauhin.
He studied botany at Tübingen under Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566). He then travelled with Conrad Gessner, after which he started a practise of medicine at Basel, where he was elected Professor of Rhetoric in 1566. Four years later he was invited to become physician to Frederick I, Duke of Württemberg at Montbéliard, in the Franche-Comté where he remained until his death. He devoted himself chiefly to botany. His great work, Historia plantarum universalis, a compilation of all that was then known about botany, remained incomplete at his death, but was published at Yverdon in 1650–1651.
Bauhin nurtured several botanic gardens and also collected plants during his travels. In 1591, he published a list of plants named after saints called De Plantis a Divis Sanctisve Nomen Habentibus.
He died in Montbéliard.
Carl Linnaeus named the genus Bauhinia (family Caesalpiniaceae) for the brothers Johann and Gaspard Bauhin.
Jean Bauhin
Description
The Historia Plantarum Universalis (1650-1651) is the first international plant-based treatise on flora, containing over 5000 plants. The work testify the great progresses in the knowledge of botany during the sixteenth century, and is mainly due to the research of Johann Bauhin, a Swiss medical and botanist, known especially for his work on the classification of plants.