De Metalli 188

Title

De Metalli 188

Description

Depiction of metal mining with description / Illustration of a mine on the reverse.

ca. 1557

Artist

Agricola (Bauer) (1494-1555)

Georg Agricola or Georgius Agricola, Latinised from Georg Pawer, via Bauer (born 24 March 1494 in Glauchau, died 21 November 1555 in Chemnitz), was a German physician, pharmacist and scientist who is considered the ‘father of mineralogy’ and the founder of modern geology and mining science. As an outstanding Renaissance scholar and humanist, he was also characterised by special achievements in education, medicine, metrology, philosophy and history. Through numerous trips to mining districts in the Saxon-Bohemian Ore Mountains, Agricola gained an overview of the entire technology of mining and metallurgy in his time. The result is his main work De re metallica libri XII, published in Latin in Basel in 1556, one year after his death. It was the first systematic technological study of mining and metallurgy and remained the definitive work on the subject for two centuries. It was later translated into numerous other languages. Philippus Bechius (1521-1560), a friend of Agricola and professor at the University of Basel, translated the work into German and published it in 1557 under the title Vom Bergkwerck XII Bücher.