VI. 



INTRODUCTION. 



preserved in the archives of the Zwickau Town Council, calls himself "Bauer," 

 and in them refers to his brother " Agricola." He entered the University of 

 Leipsic at the age of twenty, and after about three and one-half years' attendance 

 there gained the degree of Baccalaureus Artium. In 15 18 he became Vice- 

 Principal of the Municipal School at Zwickau, where he taught Greek and Latin. 

 In 1520 he became Principal, and among his assistants was Johannes Forster, 

 better known as Luther's collaborator in the translation of the Bible. During 

 this time our author prepared and published a small Latin Grammar^. In 

 1522 he removed to Leipsic to become a lecturer in the University under his 

 friend, Petrus MoseUanus, at whose death in 1524 he went to Italy for the 

 further study of Philosophy, Medicine, and the Natural Sciences. Here he 

 remained for nearly three years, from 1524 to 1526. He visited the Universities 

 of Bologna, Venice, and probably Padua, and at these institutions received 

 his first inspiration to work in the sciences, for in a letter^ from Leonardus 

 Casibrotius to Erasmus we learn that he was engaged upon a revision of Galen. 

 It was about this time that he made the acquaintance of Erasmus, who had 

 settled at Basel as Editor for Froben's press. 



In 1526 Agricola returned to Zwickau, and in 1527 he was chosen town 

 physician at Joachimsthal. This Uttle city in Bohemia is located on the 

 eastern slope of the Erzgebirge, in the midst of the then most prolific metal- 

 mining district of Central Europe. Thence to Freiberg is but fifty miles, 

 and the same radius from that city would include most of the mining towns 

 so frequently mentioned in De Re MetalUca — Schneeberg, Geyer, Annaberg 

 and Altenberg — and not far away were Marienberg, Gottesgab, and Flatten. 

 Joachimsthal was a booming mining camp, founded but eleven years before 

 Agricola's arrival, and already having several thousand inhabitants. Accord- 

 ing to Agricola's own statement*, he spent all the time not required for his 

 medical duties in visiting the mines and smelters, in reading up in the Greek and 

 Latin authors aU references to mining, and in association with the most learned 

 among the mining folk. Among these was one Lorenz Berman, whom Agricola 

 afterward set up as the "learned miner " in his dialogue Bermannus. This 

 book was first published by Froben at Basel in 1530, and was a sort of 

 catechism on mineralogy, mining terms, and mining lore. The book was 

 apparently first submitted to the great Erasmus, and the pubUcation arranged 

 by him, a warm letter of approval by him appearing at the beginning of the 

 book^. In 1533 he published De Mensuris et Ponderibus, through Froben, 

 this being a discussion of Roman and Greek weights and measures. At 

 about this time he began De Re MetalUca — not to be pubUshed for 

 twenty-five years. 



^Georgii Agricolae Glaucii Libellus de Prima ac Simplici Institutione Grammatica, 

 printed by Melchior Lotther, Leipzig, 1520 Petrus MoseUanus refers to this work (without 

 giving title) in a letter to Agricola, June, 1520. 



^Briefe an Desiderius Erasmus von Rotterdam. Published by Joseph Forstemann 

 and Otto Giinther. xxvii. Beiheft zum Zeniralblatt fiir Bibliothekswesen, Leipzig, 1904. 

 p. 44. 



*De Veteribus et Novis Metallis. Preface. 



^A summary of this and of Agricola's other works is given in the Appendix A. 



