DE RE METALLICA.

Agricola seems to have been engaged in the preparation of De Re Metallica for a period of over twenty years, as we first hear of the book in a letter from Petrus Plateanus, a schoolmaster at Joachimsthal, to the great humanist, Erasmus,¹⁶ in September 1529. He says: “The scientific world will be still more indebted to Agricola when he brings to light the books De Re Metallica and other matters which he has on hand.” In the dedication of De Mensuris et Ponderibus (in 1533), Agricola states that he intends to publish twelve books of De Re Metallica, if he lives. That the appearance of this work was eagerly anticipated is evidenced by a letter from George Fabricius to Valentine Hertel:¹⁷ “The books De Re Metallica are being awaited with great excitement. If he treats the material at hand with his usual zeal, he will win for himself glory such as no one in any field of literature has attained for the last thousand years.” According to the dedication of De Veteribus et Novis Metallis, by 1546 Agricola already looked forward to its early publication. The work was apparently finished in 1550, for the dedication to the Dukes Maurice and August of Saxony is dated December of that year. The eulogistic poem by his friend, George Fabricius, is dated 1551.

The publication was apparently long delayed by the preparation of the woodcuts; and, according to Mathesius,¹⁸ many sketches for them were prepared by Basilius Wefring. In the preface of De Re Metallica, Agricola does not mention who prepared the sketches, but does say: “I have hired illustrators to delineate their forms, lest descriptions which are conveyed by words should either not be understood by men of our own times, or should cause difficulty to posterity.” In 1553, the completed book was sent to Froben for publication, for a letter¹⁹ from Fabricius to Meurer in March 1553 announces its dispatch to the printer. An interesting letter²⁰ from the Elector Augustus to Agricola, dated January 18, 1555, reads: “Most learned, dear and faithful subject, whereas you have sent to the Press a Latin book of which the title is said to be De Rebus Metallicis original: "On Metallic Matters", which has been praised to us and we should like to know the contents, it is our gracious command that you should get the book translated into German when you have the opportunity, and not let it be copied more than once or be printed, but keep it by you and send us a copy. If you should need a writer for this purpose, we will provide one. Thus you will fulfill our gracious behest.” The German translation was prepared by Philip Bechius, a Basel University Professor of Medicine and Philosophy. It is a wretched work by one who knew nothing of the science, and who more especially had no appreciation of the peculiar Latin terms coined by Agricola, most of which...

¹⁶ Briefe an Desiderius Erasmus von Rotterdam Letters to Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. Published by Joseph Förstemann & Otto Günther. XXVII. Beiheft zum Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, Leipzig, 1904, p. 125.
¹⁷ Petrus Albinus, Meissnische Land und Berg Chronica Meissen Land and Mountain Chronicle, Dresden, 1590, p. 353.
¹⁸ This statement is contained under “1556” in a sort of chronicle bound up with Mathesius’s Sarepta, Nuremberg, 1562.
¹⁹ Baumgarten-Crusius, p. 85, letter No. 93.
²⁰ Principal State Archives, Dresden, Cop. 259, folio 102.