PREFACE xxvii. 



he had begun.® 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.^" 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 b3' 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^^ 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 x"/"-^ "-"■« ; and there are Hermes ; 

 Chanes ; Zosimus, the Alexandrian, to his sister Theosebia ; Olympiodorus, 

 also an Alexandrian ; Agathodaemon ; Democritus, not the one of Abdera, 

 but some other whom I know not ; Orus Chrysorichites, Pebichius, Comerius, 

 Joannes, Apulejus, Petasius, Pe'agius, Africanus, Theophilus, Synesius, 

 Stephanus to Heracleus Caesar, 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. ^^ 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, i88t, p. 47) says : " Calbus 

 " Freibergius, so called by Agricola himseU, is certainly no other than the Freibe'g Doctor 

 " Riihlein von Kalbe ; he was, according to MoUer, a doctor and burgomasier at Fieiberg 

 " at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the i6th 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 atlention to the statement 

 of Calbus' views, quoted at the end of Book III, De Re Metallica (p. 75), which a'e astonishingly 

 similar to statements in the Niitzlich BejgbucMin, and leave little doubt thai this " Calbus " 

 was the author of that anonymous book on veins. For further discussion sse Appendix B. 



^"FoT discussion of Biringuccio see Appendix B. The proper title is De La Pirotechnia 

 (Venice, 1540). 



'^Hermolaus Barbaras, 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 



