Conr. Gesneri Tigurini medicinæ et philosophiae professoris in Schola Tigurina, Historiæ animalium liber II : qui est de quadrupedibus ouiparis
A 1586 Latin natural history volume by Conrad Gessner, a Zurich physician and professor, printed in Frankfurt for scholars studying animals. Its pictures are woodcut snakes, some plausible and some winged or dragon-like, drawn in a sparse, schematic manner that shows how early naturalists mixed observation with legend and gives a designer a model for serpentine line and scale texture.





















