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THE PREFACE TO THE PYRO-

TECHNIA BY SIGNOR VANUCCIO BIRINGUCCIO, SIENESE:

IN WHICH IS TREATED GENERALLY EVERY SORT OF MINERAL, AND FUSIONS, AND THE DISPOSITION OF OTHER MATERIALS.

TO MR. BERNARDINO MONCELLESE, FROM SALÒ.

A decorative woodcut initial 'H' features a central human face surrounded by scrolling floral and leaf motifs.

Having promised you to write of the nature of minerals in particular, it is necessary for me to tell you something in general, and especially of the places, the orders, and the instruments that are used there, and their forms and methods. Therefore know that minerals are found in many parts of the world, but more or less according to the skill of the investigators; and they show themselves almost in the manner that the veins of blood are in the bodies of animals, or the branches of trees variously scattered. Wherefore, wanting to show with a certain similarity how the minerals are placed in mountains, the diligent investigators of these minerals have imagined a large, very branchy tree, planted in the middle of the base of a mountain, from whose main trunk various and diverse branches derive, some thick and some thin, exactly like those that are truly seen in aged forests. And they hold that by growing they always thicken and tend toward the sky, converting the disposed and nearby materials into their own nature until the tips reach the summit of the mountain, and they show themselves with clear appearance, sending out—instead of leaves and flowers—bluish or green fumes, or marcasites original: "margassitte"; in this period, the term referred generally to various metallic sulfide minerals like pyrite, often mistaken for or associated with gold and silver ores. with small veins of heavy mineral, or other compositions of tinctures original: "tenture"; colored stains or mineral deposits on the surface of rocks that indicate the presence of metal below.. BY THESE THINGS it is possible, should they appear to us, to make a firm conjecture that such a mountain is mineral-bearing, and according to the signs they give of more or less, it is thus copious and rich, or poor in mineral. Wherefore the seekers, according to the appearances they find, take heart, and with hope and certainty of profit, they put forth every possible care, with skill and expense, to extract those things which the signs have shown them. For often there are minerals of such a sort that they rise to the highest degree of wealth; and then men, with the eyes of consideration and judgment, penetrate inside the mountains and see the places where they are, and exactly the quantities, and toward those they adapt the excavations, which otherwise would proceed by chance. Because men cannot exactly comprehend where the minerals are in the mountains, even if they had the very best judgment and even if they had gone searching minutely. And therefore it is necessary to go about certifying oneself with the appearance of the signs, and to try to encounter them as much as possible, always keeping eyes and ears open where they hope to have some indication, and especially [listening] to shepherds or other ancient people living in those countries. And I tell you this, because I am persuaded that