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Description
231. # AGRICOLA (GEORGIUS)
De re metallica libri XII... eiusdem De Animantibus Subterraneis liber, FIRST EDITION, Roman and italic types, with a little Greek and gothic, woodcut printer's device on title and last page, woodcut illustrations (many full-page and 2 folding), retaining blank α6, two small tears to title-page, neat tape repairs in inner margins of 6 leaves (including title), some damp-staining throughout (occasionally a little heavier), slight toning, modern blind-stamped calf with Froben device on lower cover, rubbed [Adams A349; Brunet I, 113; PMM 79; USTC 600324], folio (305 x 211mm.), Basel, Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Bischoff, 1556
FIRST EDITION OF 'THE FIRST SYSTEMATIC TREATISE ON MINING AND METALLURGY AND ONE OF THE FIRST TECHNOLOGICAL BOOKS OF MODERN TIMES' (PMM).
Published by Froben in March 1556, just four months after the death of Georgius Agricola (1494–1555), De re metallica is the culmination of Agricola's technological, economic, and philosophical works, uniting rigorous technical and financial expertise with a real concern for the health and working lives of miners. Having trained in medicine at Leipzig, Agricola spent three years in Bologna and Venice contributing to the Aldine editions of Galen and Hippocrates before becoming, in 1527, town physician and apothecary of St Joachimstal, one of Europe's foremost mining centres. He later served in the same capacity at the copper-smelting town of Chemnitz, where his mining investments made him one of its twelve wealthiest residents.
Composed over two decades (1530–1550), this works embraces "everything connected with the mining industry and metallurgical processes, including administration, prospecting, the duties of officials and companies, and the manufacture of glass, sulphur and alum" (PMM). Beyond metallurgy and geology, Agricola writes about glassmaking, the preparation of saltpeter and nitric acid, magnets, divining rods, and surveying. Appended to this work is the earlier De animantibus subterraneis (Basel, 1549), a treatise on subterranean zoology.
This edition is illustrated with c.300 woodcuts, which were reused in seven later editions over 101 years, and are generally attributed to Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch (fl. 1525–1572), or, less commonly Blasius Weffring. Depicting furnaces, hydropower systems, pumps, ventilation, and even one of the earliest known illustrations of a railroad, they make visible the full mechanical apparatus of Renaissance mining and metallurgy.
Provenance
Gift inscription on verso of front free endpaper "Recuerdo de Ascension Menendez-Ormaza a mi hijo Enrique el 8 de Julio de 1982".
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