Brief Introduction to the

earned, but have also been promoted and well-endowed before others.

Beyond this, this art is a guide and progenitor of many other honorable and useful things, thus, as experience shows, the longer one searches after it, the more it causes one to keep searching.

What is necessary for an

Knowledge of metallic ores and mine types is necessary.

Firstly and most importantly, the knowledge of metallic ores and mining types, namely how to distinguish one from the other by shape and color, which, however, cannot be done without great diligence and daily practice. For God the almighty Creator, who at the beginning of the creation of the world, alongside other creatures, also laid the mineralia minerals into the mountains, clefts, and veins and let them be, has given to them all, and to each in particular, its external shape and color, whereby one can distinguish and know one from the other clearly.

Knowledge and regulation of fire to be observed.

Secondly, the knowledge of fire, which is also a primary and necessary piece, so that he knows how to regulate the same, and that he does not do too much to any metal in the fire beyond its need, but [is able to] give and take from each its rightful due, with heat and cold, as the necessity requires.

To know how to make furnaces and instruments, also scales and weights.

Thereafter, that he can make all his furnaces and instruments himself—except what must be of iron—and prepare them skillfully, or at the very least be able to correctly specify how they should be made, so that he is not hindered in his work, but can perform it skillfully and as necessity requires.

Likewise, [he must] apply himself to good, fast scales and correct weights, also [be able to] make them himself if need be, divide them, and adjust them for the different metals, and see that he keeps them clean, free of dust, and pure, so that he can rely on them in case [of need] and certainly succeed with his probation assay test.

An assayer should, above all things,

Item: that he, alongside these aforementioned articles or points, also be well-practiced and experienced in arithmetica the art of calculation, which is highly necessary alongside assaying at the mint and at smelting works, and that