universities of Strassburg and Bourges (1532–1533); he found also a generous patron in Paris (1534), in the person of Joh. Steiger of Berne. In 1535 the religious troubles drove him back to Zürich, where he made an imprudent marriage. His friends again came to his aid, enabled him to study at Basel (1536), and in 1537 procured for him the professorship of Greek at the newly founded academy of Lausanne (then belonging to Berne). Here he had leisure to devote himself to scientific studies, especially botany. In 1540–1541 he visited the famous medical university of Montpellier, took his degree of doctor of medicine (1541) at Basel, and then settled down to practise at Zürich, where he obtained the post of lecturer in physics at the Carolinum. There, apart from a few journeys to foreign countries, and annual summer botanical journeys in his native land, he passed the remainder of his life. He devoted himself to preparing works on many subjects of different sorts. He died of the plague on the 13th of December 1565. In the previous year he had been ennobled.
To his contemporaries he was best known as a botanist, though his botanical MSS. were not published till long after his death (at Nuremberg, 1751–1771, 2 vols. folio), he himself issuing only the Enchiridion historiae plantarum (1541) and the Catalogus plantarum (1542) in four tongues. In 1545 he published his remarkable Bibliotheca universalis (ed. by J. Simler, 1574), a catalogue (in Latin, Greek and Hebrew) of all writers who had ever lived, with the titles of their works, &c. A second part, under the title of Pandeclarium sive partitionum universalium Conradi Gesneri Ligurini libri xxi., appeared in 1548; only nineteen books being then concluded. The 21st book, a theological encyclopaedia, was published in 1549, but the 20th, intended to include his medical work, was never finished. His great zoological work, Historia animalium, appeared in 4 vols. (quadrupeds, birds, fishes) folio, 1551–1558, at Zürich, a fifth (snakes) being issued in 1587 (there is a German translation, entitled Thierbuch, of the first 4 vols., Zürich, 1563): this work is the starting-point of modern zoology. Not content with such vast works, Gesner put forth in 1555 his book entitled Mithridates de differentiis linguis, an account of about 130 known languages, with the Lord’s Prayer in 22 tongues, while in 1556 appeared his edition of the works of Aelian. To non-scientific readers, Gesner will be best known for his love of mountains (below the snow-line) and for his many excursions among them, undertaken partly as a botanist, but also for the sake of mere exercise and enjoyment of the beauties of nature. In 1541 he prefixed to a singular little work of his (Libellus de lacte et operibus lactariis) a letter addressed to his friend, J. Vogel, of Glarus, as to the wonders to be found among the mountains, declaring his love for them, and his firm resolve to climb at least one mountain every year, not only to collect flowers, but in order to exercise his body. In 1555 Gesner issued his narrative (Descriptio Montis Fracti sive Montis Pilati) of his excursion to the Gnepfstein (6299 ft.), the lowest point in the Pilatus chain, and therein explains at length how each of the senses of man is refreshed in the course of a mountain excursion.
Lives by J. Hanhart (Winterthur, 1824) and J. Simler (Zürich, 1566); see also Lebert’s Gesner als Arzt (Zürich, 1854). A part of his unpublished writing, edited by Prof. Schmiedel, was published at Nuremberg in 1753.
GESSNER, SOLOMON (1730–1788), Swiss painter and poet,
was born at Zürich on the 1st of April 1730. With the exception
of some time (1749–1750) spent in Berlin and Hamburg, where he
came under the influence of Ramler and Hagedorn, he passed
the whole of his life in his native town, where he carried on the
business of a bookseller. He died on the 2nd of March 1788.
The first of his writings that attracted attention was his
Lied eines Schweizers an sein bewaffnetes Mädchen (1751). Then
followed Daphnis (1754), Idyllen (1756 and 1772), Inkel and Yariko
(1756), a version of a story borrowed from the Spectator
(No. 11, 13th of March 1711) and already worked out by Gellert
and Bodmer, and Der Tod Abels (1758), a sort of idyllic pastoral.
It is somewhat difficult for us now to understand the reason of
Gessner’s universal popularity, unless it was the taste of the
period for the conventional pastoral. His writings are marked
by sweetness and melody, qualities which were warmly appreciated
by Lessing, Herder and Goethe. As a painter Gessner
represented the conventional classical landscape.
Collected editions of Gessner’s works were repeatedly published (2 vols. 1777–1778, finally 2 vols. 1841, both at Zürich). They were translated into French (3 vols., Paris, 1786–1793), and versions of the Idyllen appeared in English, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Bohemian. Gessner’s life was written by Hottinger (Zürich, 1796), and by H. Wölfflin (Frauenfeld, 1889); see also his Briefwechsel mit seinem Sohn (Bern and Zürich, 1801).
GESSO, an Italian word (Lat. gypsum), for “plaster of Paris” especially when used as a ground for painting, or for modelling or sculpture.
GESTA ROMANORUM, a Latin collection of anecdotes and tales, probably compiled about the end of the 13th century or the beginning of the 14th. It still possesses a twofold literary interest, first as one of the most popular books of the time, and secondly as the source, directly or indirectly, of later literature, in Chaucer, Gower, Shakespeare and others. Of its authorship nothing certain is known; and there is little but gratuitous conjecture to associate it either with the name of Helinandus or with that of Petrus Berchorius (Pierre Bercheure). It is even a matter of debate whether it took its rise in England, Germany or France. The work was evidently intended as a manual for preachers, and was probably written by one who himself belonged to the clerical profession. The name, Deeds of the Romans, is only partially appropriate to the collection in its present form, since, besides the titles from Greek and Latin history and legend, it comprises fragments of very various origin, oriental and European. The unifying element of the book is its moral purpose. The style is barbarous, and the narrative ability of the compiler seems to vary with his source; but he has managed to bring together a considerable variety of excellent material. He gives us, for example, the germ of the romance of “Guy of Warwick”;
the story of “Darius and his Three Sons,” versified by Occleve; part of Chaucer’s “Man of Lawes’ Tale”; a tale of the emperor Theodosius, the same in its main features as that of Shakespeare’s Lear; the story of the “Three Black Crows”; the “Hermit and the Angel,” well known from Parnell’s version, and a story identical with the Fridolin of Schiller. Owing to the loose structure of the book, it was easy for a transcriber to insert any additional story into his own copy, and consequently the MSS. of the Gesta Romanorum exhibit considerable variety. Oesterley recognizes an English group of MSS. (written always in Latin), a German group (sometimes in Latin and sometimes in German), and a group which is represented by the vulgate or common printed text. The earliest editions are supposed to be those of Ketelaer and de Lecompt at Utrecht, of Arnold Ter Hoenen at Cologne, and of Ulrich Zell at Cologne; but the exact date is in all three cases uncertain.
An English translation, probably based directly on the MS. Harl. 5369, was published by Wynkyn de Worde about 1510–1515, the only copy of which now known to exist is preserved in the library of St John’s College, Cambridge. In 1577 Richard Robinson published a revised edition of Wynkyn de Worde, and the book proved highly popular. Between 1648 and 1703 at least eight impressions were issued. In 1703 appeared the first vol. of a translation by B. P., probably Bartholomew Pratt, “from the Latin edition of 1514.” A translation by the Rev. C. Swan, first published in 2 vols. in 1824, forms part of Bonn’s antiquarian library, and was re-edited by Wynnard Hooper in 1877 (see also the latter’s edition in 1894). The German translation was first printed at Augsburg, 1489. A French version, under the title of Le Violier des histoires romaines moraliséz, appeared in the early part of the 16th century, and went through a number of editions; it has been reprinted by G. Brunet (Paris, 1858). Critical editions of the Latin text have been produced by A. Keller (Stuttgart, 1842) and Oesterley (Berlin, 1872). See also Warton, “On the Gesta Romanorum,” dissertation iii., prefixed to the History of English Poetry; Douce, Illustrations of Shakespeare, vol. ii.; Frederick Madden, Introduction to the Roxburghe Club edition of The Old English Versions of the Gesta Romanorum (1838).
GETA, PUBLIUS SEPTIMIUS (189–212), younger son of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, was born at Mediolanum (Milan). In 198 he received the title of Caesar, and in 209 those of Imperator and Augustus. Between him and his brother Caracalla
