Editing Conrad Gessner (section)

== Legacy ==
[[File:New iewell of health 1576 Title page AQ6 (2).jpg|thumb|upright|Title page from ''The new Iewell of Health'', 1576]]
Gessner has been described as the father of modern scientific botany and zoology, and the father of modern bibliography. To his contemporaries he was best known as a botanist.{{sfn|Pettitt|2014}} Despite his traveling ways and the job of maintaining his own gardens, Gesner probably spent most of his time inside his own extensive library.{{sfn|Leu et al|2008}} He listed among his History of Animals sources more than 80 Greek authors and at least 175 Latin authors, as well as works by German, French, and Italian authors. He even attempted to establish a "universal library" of all books in existence. The project might sound strange to the modern mind, but Gessner invested tremendous energy in the project. He sniffed through remote libraries along with the collections of the Vatican Library and catalogs of printers and booksellers. By assembling this universal library of information, Gessner put together a database centuries before computers would ease such work. He cut relevant passages out of books, grouped the cuttings by general theme, subdivided the groups into more specific categories, and boxed them. He could then retrieve and arrange the cuttings as needed. In the words of science writer Anna Pavord, "He was a one-man search engine, a 16th-century Google with the added bonus of critical evaluation."<ref name="Pavord2008">{{cite book|last=Pavord|first=Anna|title=The Naming of Names: The Search for Order in the World of Plants|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qksX1BeWkqcC&pg=PA287|year=2008|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=9781596919655|page=287}}</ref>

To his contemporaries, Gessner was known as "the Swiss Pliny." According to legend, when he knew his time was near, he asked to be taken to his library where he had spent so much of his life, to die among his favorite books. At the time of his death, Gesner had published 72 books, and written 18 more unpublished manuscripts. His work on plants was not published until centuries after his death.{{sfn|Scott|2017}}

In 1576 [[George Baker (surgeon)|George Baker]] published a translation of the ''Evonymus'' of Conrad Gessner under the title of ''The Newe Jewell of Health, wherein is contained the most excellent Secretes of Physicke and Philosophie divided into fower bookes''. Amongst his students was [[Felix Plater]], who became a professor of medicine, and accumulated many plant specimens, but also illustrations of animals used in ''Historiae animalium''.{{sfn|Platter|2017}} A year after his death, his friend [[Josias Simler]] published a biography of Gessner.{{sfn|Backus|2016}}{{sfn|Simler|1566}} Gessner and others founded the ''Physikalische Gesellschaft'' in Zurich, which later became the ''[[Naturforschende Gesellschaft in Zürich]]'' (NGZH) in 1746, to promote the study of natural sciences. Today it is one of the oldest Swiss scientific societies. The society's annual publication, the ''Neujahrsblatt der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Zürich'' was devoted to a biography of Gessner in 1966, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of his death.{{sfn|Fischer|1966a}}

=== Eponomy ===

In 1753 [[Carl Linnaeus]] named ''[[Tulipa gesneriana]]'', the [[type species]] of the ''[[Tulipa]]'' [[genus]], in his honour.{{sfn|Linnaeus|1753}}{{sfn|Grout|2017}} 
The [[flowering plant]] genus ''[[Gesneria]]'' and its family [[Gesneriaceae]] are named after him. A genus of moths is also named ''[[Gesneria (moth)|Gesneria]]'' after him.

=== Memorials ===
[[File:Alter Botanischer Garten Zürich - Conrad Gessner IMG 0807.jpg|thumb|upright|Conrad Gessner memorial, [[Old Botanical Garden, Zürich]]|alt=Photograph of a bust of Gessner in the Botanical Garden in Zurich]]
* The ''Gessner'' [[herbal garden]] at the [[Old Botanical Garden, Zürich]], is named after him, and there is a bust in the garden in his memory (''see image'') 
* The [[cloister]] in the [[Carolinum, Zürich]] in the ''[[Grossmünster]]'' church, where Gessner is buried, also houses a herbal garden dedicated to him.{{sfn|Stadt Zürich|2017}}
* Gessner was featured on the 50 [[Swiss francs]] banknotes issued between 1978 and 1994.
* On 16 March 2016 the State Museum in Zürich, in close collaboration with Zurich’s Central Library ([[Zentralbibliothek Zürich]]), dedicated a special exhibition to Gessner in celebration of the 500th anniversary of his birth.{{sfn|National Museum|2016}}