AGRÍCOLA, GEORG

Agrícola, Georg: translation

(vernacular name Georg Bauer, 1490-1555).

German writer on metallurgy and mining. Educated in Latin grammar at Leipzig and in medicine atBologna, he wrote on subjects ranging from grammar to weights and measures to the plague, but his work as a physician in a mining town in Bohemia gave rise to an interest in minerals and metallurgy that led to several publications on mines and fossils, culminating in hisDe re metallica/On Metals(1556), a summary of the most advanced knowledge in metal-working and mining, accompanied by hundreds of woodcut illustrations.