Lot 61
Agricola, Georgius
De re metallica libri xx
The Library of James Stirling, Mathematician
Auction: 23 October 2025 from 13:00 GMT
Description
Basel: Froben, 1561. Folio in sixes (30.5 x 19cm), 18th-century British sprinkled calf, dove of peace motifs gilt to spine, woodcut Froben device to title-page and colophon leaf, 2 folding woodcut plates, profusely illustrated with woodcuts throughout the text, retaining medial blank alpha6, binding rubbed, leather along joints split (cords holding), initial blank detached, title-page slightly marked, closed tear to head of h5 affecting five lines of text, browning to K1, damp-staining to R2-5 [Adams A350; Ferguson I p. 9; VD16 A 934; cf. Duveen p. 4, Garrison-Morton 13252 and PMM 79 for the first edition, 1556]
Footnote
Second edition of 'the first systematic treatise on mining and metallurgy and one of the first technological books of modern times' (PMM), five years after the first edition of 1556, likewise the work of master Basel printer Hieronymus Froben. ‘De Re Metallica was for so long the standard work on mining and metallurgy, and it was followed by most of the writers who succeeded Agricola. Not one of their works, however, was on the same scale, was so systematically arranged, so well and classically written, so entirely based on persona and practical experience. Besides, Agricola’s treatise abounds with woodcuts which are vigorous and artistic, and give a picturesque and vivid delineation of the processes and machinery. The works are also furnished with vocabularies of technical terms and indices. For chemistry the De Re Metallica is of much interest, for, besides the general metallurgical processes described … there are sections upon assaying, cupellation, preparation of salts … the distillation of nitric acid, and so on. Agricola was the pioneer of mineralogical science in modern Europe' (Ferguson).