Otto Brunfels, Herbarum vivae eicones (New images of plants), Strasbourg, J Schoft, 1532, Rare Books collection

German Otto Brunfels, the ‘father’ of botany, originally entered a Carthusian monastery, but poor health and the religious upheaval of the Reformation led him to abandon the religious life and pursue instead a career of teaching and medicine. His Herbarum is a catalogue of plants from the Strasbourg region where he lived, and summarises the existing botanical knowledge of these species. Its superbly accurate woodcut illustrations by Hans Weiditz heralded a new naturalism born of direct observation.