he had begun.[1] Recently Vannucci Biringuccio, of Sienna, a wise man experienced in many matters, wrote in vernacular Italian on the subject of the melting, separating, and alloying of metals.[2] He touched briefly on the methods of smelting certain ores, and explained more fully the methods of making certain juices; by reading his directions, I have refreshed my memory of those things which I myself saw in Italy; as for many matters on which I write, he did not touch upon them at all, or touched but lightly. This book was given me by Franciscus Badoarius, a Patrician of Venice, and a man of wisdom and of repute; this he had promised that he would do, when in the previous year he was at Marienberg, having been sent by the Venetians as an Ambassador to King Ferdinand. Beyond these books I do not find any writings on the metallic arts. For that reason, even if the book of Strato existed, from all these sources not one-half of the whole body of the science of mining could be pieced together.
Seeing that there have been so few who have written on the subject of the metals, it appears to me all the more wonderful that so many alchemists have arisen who would compound metals artificially, and who would change one into another. Hermolaus Barbarus,[3] a man of high rank and station, and distinguished in all kinds of learning, has mentioned the names of many in his writings; and I will proffer more, but only famous ones, for I will limit myself to a few. Thus Osthanes has written on χυμευτικά; and there are Hermes; Chanes; Zosimus, the Alexandrian, to his sister Theosebia; Olympiodorus, also an Alexandrian; Agathodæmon; Democritus, not the one of Abdera, but some other whom I know not; Orus Chrysorichites, Pebichius, Comerius, Joannes, Apulejus, Petasius, Pelagius, Africanus, Theophilus, Synesius, Stephanus to Heracleus Cæsar, Heliodorus to Theodosius, Geber, Callides Rachaidibus, Veradianus, Rodianus, Canides, Merlin, Raymond Lully, Arnold de Villa Nova, and Augustinus Pantheus of Venice; and three women, Cleopatra, the maiden Taphnutia, and Maria the Jewess.[4] All these alchemists employ obscure language, and Johanes Aurelius Augurellus of Rimini, alone has used the language of poetry. There are many other books on
- ↑ Jacobi (Der Mineralog Georgius Agricola, Zwickau, 1881, p. 47) says: “Calbus Freibergius, so called by Agricola himself, is certainly no other than the Freiberg Doctor Ruhlein von Kalbe; he was, according to Moller, a doctor and burgomaster at Freiberg at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th Centuries. . . . The chronicler describes him as a fine mathematician, who helped to survey and design the mining towns of Annaberg in 1497 and Marienberg in 1521.” We would call attention to the statement of Calbus' views, quoted at the end of Book III. De Re Metallica (p. 75), which are astonishingly similar to statements in the Nützlich Bergbüchlin, and leave little doubt that this “Calbus” was the author of that anonymous book on veins. For further discussion see Appendix B.
- ↑ For discussion of Biringuccio see Appendix B. The proper title is De La Pirotechnia (Venice, 1540).
- ↑ Hermolaus Barbarus, according to Watt (Bibliotheca Britannica, London, 1824), was a lecturer on Philosophy in Padua. He was born in 1454, died in 1493, and was the author of a number of works on medicine, natural history, etc., with commentaries on the older authors.
- ↑ The debt which humanity does owe to these self-styled philosophers must not be overlooked, for the science of Chemistry comes from three sources—Alchemy, Medicine and Metallurgy. However polluted the former of these may be, still the vast advance which it made by the discovery of the principal acids, alkalis, and the more common of their salts, should be constantly recognized. It is obviously impossible, within the space of a footnote, to
