HISTORICAL NOTE The Great 16th-century Chroniclers of Pyrotechnology Go to any good technical library today verges on plagiarism. The relatively sake of obtaining gold and silver, doors and you will find an ocean of journals, greater familiarity with Agricola com- are burst open, walls are pierced, monographs, proceedings, CD databases, pared with Biringuccio may be due to the wretched travelers are struck by rapa- manuals, and other sources loaded with former's more scholarly approach. His use cious and cruel men born to theft, sacri- protocols, practices, formulae, and proce- of Latin would have naturally attracted lege, invasion and robbery," he wrote. dures for virtually every industrial art. the intelligentsia. Biringuccio wrote in the The most deadly fruit of human ingenu- This plethora of information is all the Italian vernacular to reach his technical ity, he continued by way of a quote from more reason why last year's passing audience. To be fair, De Re Metallica did the Roman historian Pliny, ""For to bring without at least some acknowledgment in include far better illustrations than De La Death to men more quickly we have the MRS Bulletin of the 500th anniversary Pirotechnia, and often provided more tech- given wings to iron and taught it to fly.'" of George Bauer's birth might fit into the nical detail. Still, in his translation with The resemblance to modern day debates genre of ungracious acts. Martha Teach Gnudi of Biringuccio's about guns is conspicuous. Bauer, a physician in sixteenth-century work, Smith credits Biringuccio's work As a champion of metals and materials, Bohemia and Saxony (now areas of the with marking "the beginning of a true however, Agricola then attempted to Czech Republic and Slovakia and of technological literature, with both crafts- upend all of that metal-brought carnage Germany, respectively) is better known by manship and science united by a writer's with a litany of good that metals do in historians as Georgius Agricola, a pen to form a record of an important facet society. "But has the artisan or weaver of Latinized name probably given to him by of man's achievement as a stimulus to fur- clothes any instrument not made of iron?" his instructors. His achievement most ther advance." Agricola asked his readers. It serves as important to today's materials community Regardless of the priority issue, the vessels for making agricultural tools like is that he was one of the very first to write sober presentations of these two writers plows and scythes; for making tools out of a detailed and comprehensive chronicle of stand out starkly against a vast back- other materials like wood; for preparing the practical arts, primarily mining and ground of feverish, thickly coded works wool, flax, feather, hair, fur, and leather metallurgy. Various ancient writers had by alchemists, whose goals were riches for clothing. Indeed, he concluded, "If recorded bits and pieces on such topics and/or spiritual purification rather than there were no metals, men would pass a much earlier. But none of these ap- furthering the pyrotechnical arts. (Ironic- horrible and wretched existence in the proached the comprehensiveness or cur- ally, Isaac Newton, during his own exten- midst of wild beasts: they would return to rency of Agricola's most celebrated work sive alchemical pursuits, sometimes sum- the acorns and fruits and berries of the for- De Re Metallica, which was first published moned "an old mouldy Book," which a est." With this as his motivation, he then in 1556, a year after the author's death. secretary of the great scientist identified devoted the bulk of the book to describing Besides mining and metallurgy, the trea- as De Re Metallica.) In the estimation of the various practices that people of the tise covers glassmaking, pottery, and the science historian A. Rupert Hall, Agricola day used for locating, assaying, mining, manufacture of salt, soda, potash, saltpeter and Biringuccio "represented the true preparing, and smelting metallic ores, as (potassium nitrate), and other chemicals, summation of 6000 years of development well as the means of refining and working which Agricola called "solidified juices." in the pyrotechnic arts." the iron, copper, tin, lead, bismuth, anti- De Re Metallica, with dozens of beautiful As Agricola wrote in Book I (of a mony, mercury, gold, and silver that came and detailed woodcuts, went through 10 dozen), he spent 20 years researching and of such labors. editions and several translations at a time writing De Re Metallica to defend metals, Just what Agricola thought about the when printing such a lavish book was a which others were maligning at the time physical nature of metals does not come major undertaking. It remains one of the as evil materials that humanity ought not out clearly in De Re Metallica. In a foot- most important primary sources on to want or try to procure. The mining note, the Hoovers point out that Agricola Medieval and Renaissance technology for industry was under attack for such followed an Aristotelian theory in which contemporary historians of technology. injuries as tearing up the landscape and metals are a mixture of water (which is Interestingly, it was first translated into killing off workers, and for being too why they can melt and flow) and an English in 1912 by none other than the uncertain to ensure reliable economies for "earth," the different metals derived from engineer and U.S. President-to-be Herbert the towns supporting the operations. differing proportions and purities of Hoover and his wife Lou Henry Hoover. "When ores are washed, the water which water and earth. The late Manhattan Project metallurgist has been used poisons the brooks and Throughout De Re Metallica are fasci- and materials historian Cyril Smith point- streams, and either destroys fish or drives nating passages that reveal the montage ed out that the Italian metallurgist and them away," he wrote in his portrayal of of beliefs swarming simultaneously with- writer Vannoccio Biringuccio, who was the critics' arguments. "The inhabitants of in even the most highly educated Renais- born in 1480, was unjustly overshadowed these regions, on account of the devasta- sance minds. Agricola was generally by Agricola. In 1540, while Agricola was tion of their fields, find great difficulty in skeptical about supernatural claims and still working on De Re Metallica, Birin- procuring necessities of life." magical abilities claimed by the alchemy guccio's De La Pirotechnia, was published. Metal brought out the worst in people, community, which was then still thriving. Indeed, Smith goes so far as to say that in too. Consider the precious metals. "It is Still, he believed in the reality of demons. several places in De Re Metallica Agricola almost our daily experience that, for the Mines are sometimes abandoned, he DownloadedMRS BULLETIN/JUN from https://www.cambridge.org/coreE 1995 . IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 26 Sep 2021 at 20:36:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at 61 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1557/S0883769400037027 HISTORICAL NOTE Reproduced from G. Agricola, De Re Metallka, translated by H.C. Hoover and L.H. Hoover, Dover, New York, 1950, p. 383. claimed, because of the presence of "demons of ferocious aspect," which "are expelled and put to flight by prayer and fasting." In his work De Animantibus, he briefly wrote about a kindlier class of mine denizens. "They appear to laugh with glee and pretend to do much, but really do nothing," he wrote, adding helpfully that "sometimes they throw pebbles at the workmen, but they rarely injure them unless the workmen ridicule or curse them." Besides the work of Agricola and Biringuccio, there were a few other lesser sixteenth-century works about mining, metallurgy, and mineralogy, including a set of German booklets—called Probier- buchlein—filled with procedural recipes written more for practitioners than for the wider readership that Agricola and Biringuccio sought. The dearth of early lit- erature on materials manufacturing is understandable. Artisans were not gener- ally inclined toward writing nor did they want to reveal trade secrets; those educat- ed enough to write rarely had the practical arts on their minds. Agricola and Birin- guccio broke through this mutual exclu- sivity. Their legacy has grown into endless buckling stacks of library shelves filled with writings of those who make things. IVAN AMATO FOR FURTHER READING: Georgius Agricola, De Re Metallica, translated by Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover, Dover Publication, Inc., (New York: 1950); A. Rupert Hall, The Revolution in Science 1500-1750, Longman (New York: 1983); Biringuccio Vannoccio, De La Pirotechnia, translated by Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi, Dover Publications, Inc. (New York, 1990). New Videotape "The Golden Age of Crystal Defects" Available from MRS Contact MRS Publications for Details A, B, C—THREE FURNACES. AT THE FIRST STANDS THE SMELTER, WHO WITH A LADLE (412) 367-3012 POURS THE ALLOY OUT OF THE FOREHEARTH INTO THE MOULDS. D—FOREHEARTH. E—LADLE. F—MOULDS. G—ROUND WOODEN RAMMER. H—TAPPING-BAR. AT THE SECOND FURNACE STANDS THE SMELTER. WHO OPENS THE TAP-HOLE WITH HIS TAPPING-BAR. Fax: (412) 367-4373 THE ASSISTANT, STANDING ON STEPS PLACED AGAINST THE THIRD FURNACE WHICH HAS BEEN BROKEN OPEN, CHIPS OFF THE ACCRETIONS. I—STEPS. K—SPATULA. L—THE OTHER HOOKED BAR. M—MLNE CAPTAIN CARRYING A CAKE, IN WHICH HE HAS STUCK THE PICK, TO THE SCALES TO BE WEIGHED. N—ANOTHER MINE CAPTAIN OPENS A CHEST IN WHICH HIS THINGS ARE KEPT. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 26 Sep 2021 at 20:36:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.