250th Birthday Alexander von Humboldt - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 2019 - 80 Euro Cent

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was enraptured to storms of enthusiasm about Alexander von Humboldt (1769 to 1859), one of the last German universal geniuses: "A true Cornu Copiae of the natural sciences. His handling is extremely interesting and instructive. One could not read in 8 days from books what he's going to tell you in one hour." Humboldt is one of the best-known Germans in the world today. The founder of animal and plant geography, climatology, hydrography and modern country representation is also revered as the actual discoverer of America. The special thing about him was his sense for the overall context. With his most influential work, the four-volume "Kosmos, Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung" ("Cosmos, draft of a physical description of the world"), he set himself the task, with the support of numerous experts, of compiling the entire scientific knowledge of his time. His global-ecological approach only regained importance in recent decades after the splitting of the sciences into specialized individual disciplines.