European Floras

Worth was especially interested in European floras and collected a wide variety of works. Undoubtedly his most important book was his magnificent Hortus Eystettensis (Nuremberg?, 1640), a pictorial representation of the Prince Bishop of Eichstätt’s garden, but this was but the largest of a wide-ranging collection which included national floras dealing with France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. Some of these were in composite works, such as Jacques Barrelier’s Plantae per Galliam, Hispaniam et Italiam observatae (Paris, 1714) and Paolo Boccone’s Icones & descriptiones rariorum plantarum Siciliæ, Melitæ, Galliæ, & Italiæ (Oxford, 1674); others focused on specific countries, an example being Giulio Pontedera’s Italian flora, Compendium tabularum botanicarum (Padua, 1718). These in turn were joined by works on regional areas such as Pierre Joseph Garidel’s Histoire des plantes qui naissent aux environs d’Aix et dans plusieurs autres endroits de la Provence (Aix, 1715) and Johannes Loeselius’ Flora Prussica (Königsberg, 1703). Alongside them were a host of works on specific gardens – the latter we hope will be the subject of a later online exhibition.

Besler, Hortus Eystettensis (Nuremberg?, 1640), Pseudo Narcissus, Hyacinthus and Hepatica.