Includes a study of Gessner's library in the context of libraries in 16th-century Zurich, and a catalogue of the library, with listings of lost books and lost manuscripts, known from Gessner's correspondence or from annotations in other books. The catalogue of 395 items describes the detailed annotations that Gessner wrote in many of the volumes. As Gessner's library was eventually dispersed after his death, this catalogue is the result of the scholars' many years' of efforts at its reconstruction by identifying surviving volumes.