A significant cultural treasure of the 16th century presented bibliophilically. The Basel city physician Felix Platter (1536-1614) is regarded as an important scholar of his time. Convinced that personal observation is more important than knowledge from books, he made great efforts in the careful observation and description of medical and scientific phenomena. Felix Platter was a passionate botanist and maintained several botanical gardens. In these, he cultivated plants, including rare and exotic ones, for scientific purposes. At the same time, he created a herbarium that originally comprised 18 volumes. Eight volumes with around 800 dried plants and one volume with plant illustrations have survived to this day - they form what is likely the oldest existing herbarium in Switzerland. It is currently preserved and conserved in the Burgerbibliothek Bern.