Author: Agricola, Georgius.
Title: De re metallica libri XII, quibus officia, instrumenta, machinae, ac omnia denique ad metallicam spectantia, non modo` luculentissime` describuntur; sed & per effigies, suis locis insertas, [...]. [At head of title: Georgii Agricolae ...]..
Description: Basiliae Helvet, Ludovico Regis, 1621. [10],538 [i.e. 502],[58] pp. Illustrated title-page, head pieces, initials & [273] large and vivit 16th century woodcut illustrations by Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch (1525-1571), some signed with the monogram RMD, and perhaps Blasius Weffring (fl.1525-1572), depicting a wide variety of mining techniques and processes, engineering and equipment in action (incl. many half-page, full-page woodcuts & woodcut text-ills, incl. 2 folded leaves of plates). Original contemp. full leather binding, spine richly gilt and raised in compartments, Sm. folio. - Spine-ends worn, some browning and waterstained througout, three ex-libris mounted on pastdown.* Rare third Latin edition of Georgius Agricola's Bergwerckbuch. This work was previously published in 1556 and 1561, this 1621 edition seems scarcer than the previous two editions. - - Georgius Agricola (born Georg Pawer or Georg Bauer; 24 March 1494 - 21 November 1555) was a German Humanist scholar, mineralogist and metallurgist. He was born in the small town of Glauchau, in the Electorate of Saxony of the Holy Roman Empire. He was broadly educated, but he had a particular interest in the mining and refining of metals. For his groundbreaking work De Natura Fossilium published in 1546, he is generally referred to as the Father of Mineralogy. Agricola's most famous work, the De re metallica libri xii [Latin for On the Nature of Metals (Minerals)] was first published the year after his death, in 1556. ; the work might be finished in 1550, since the dedication to the elector and his brother is dated to that year. The delay is thought to be due to the book's many woodcuts. Some signed with the monogram RMD, and generally attributed to Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch (fl.1525-1572). - - The work is a systematic, illustrated treatise on mining and extractive metallurgy. It shows processes to extract ores from the ground, and metals from ore.

Keywords: Geology Mining Natural History Technic Geologie Mijnbouw Natuurwetenschappen Techniek