Medicinal Flowers Journal — Volkamer 1708 Nürnbergische Hesperides

In Greek mythology, the Hesperides were the nymphs who tended a garden at the western edge of the world, where golden apples grew on trees guarded by a serpent that never slept. When the Nuremberg physician and botanist Johann Christoph Volkamer named his great botanical work the Nürnbergische Hesperides, he was making a claim: that his gardens in Nuremberg were, in their own way, a garden of the Hesperides — a place where rare and beautiful plants grew in abundance, tended with the knowledge of a man who understood that beauty and healing were inseparable.

Both covers reproduce medicinal flower plates from Johann Christoph Volkamer’s (1644–1720) Nürnbergische Hesperides (Nuremberg, 1708–1714) — one of the most celebrated botanical books of the eighteenth century, documented with hand-colored copper engravings produced by the finest engravers working in Germany at the time. Each plate renders the healing plants of Volkamer’s Nuremberg gardens with the botanical precision of a physician and the chromatic richness of the hand-coloring tradition at its height — the form of the leaves, the structure of the flower, the arrangement of petals and stamens, all captured in a technique that would not be surpassed until the development of chromolithography in the nineteenth century.

Product Details

• Format: Hardcover journal
• Pages: 150 lined pages (75 sheets) with perforations for easy removal
• Binding: Casewrap sewn binding — flexible and lay-flat
• Dimensions: 5.75 × 8 inches
• Weight: 100 g
• Cover: Matte laminated full-wrap print

Perfect For

• Herbalists and plant medicine practitioners drawn to the German botanical tradition
• Apothecary enthusiasts and flower essence makers celebrating the Baroque healing garden
• Botanical garden lovers and medicinal plant growers keeping field and garden journals
• Collectors of early 18th-century German botanical illustration and rare book art
• Vintage botanical art admirers drawn to the hand-colored copper engraving tradition
• Thoughtful gift for anyone who finds beauty and healing in the medicinal plants of Baroque Europe

To learn more about Johann Christoph Volkamer and the golden age of German botanical publishing, read The Garden of the Hesperides on New Old Time.