GESNER [improperly GESSNER; in Latin, GESNERUS], KONRAD VON (1516-1565), German-Swiss writer and naturalist, called "the German Pliny" by Cuvier, was born at Zürich on the 26th of March 1516. The son of a poor furrier, he was educated in that town, but fell into great need after the death of his father at the battle of Kappel (1531). He had good friends, however, in his old master, Myconius, and subsequently in Heinrich Bullinger, and he was enabled to continue his studies at the 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.