was printed on large sheets measuring 57 x 46 cm. Two versions were produced, cheap black and white for use as a reference book, and a luxury version without text, printed on quality paper and lavishly hand-coloured. The luxury version sold for an exorbitant 500 florins, while the plain, uncoloured copies went for 35 florins each. Besler could finally purchase a comfortable home in a fashionable part of Nürnberg at a price of 2 500 florins – five coloured copies' worth of ‘Hortus Eystettensis'. The work generally reflected the four seasons, showing first the flowering and then the fruiting stages. "Winter" was sparsely represented with a mere 7 plates. "Spring" was a season of abundance with 134 plates illustrating 454 plants and "Summer" in full swing showed 505 plants on 184 plates. "Autumn" closed off the work with 42 plates and 98 species. The modern French translation of the herbal appears under the title Herbier des quatres saisons, and Italian version (1998) is L'erbario delle quattro stagioni. Descriptions of the plants were in Latin and showed remarkable anticipation of the binomial system, in that the captions often consisted of the first two or three words of the description. Besler's portrait appears on the frontispiece holding a sprig of basil, punning on his name. The work was published twice more in Nuremberg, in 1640 and 1713, using the same plates. 329 of the 366 plates were found in the Albertina in 1994. See also List of most expensive books and manuscripts References Bibliography Hortus Eystettensis at the Service de la documentation University of Strasbourg Online version of the Teylers Museum copy of the Hortus Eystettensis 1613 luxury edition (hand-coloured, text in manuscript). History of botany Botanical literature Eichstätt