Georgius Agricola

Agricola was born in 1494 as Georg Pawer, the second of seven children of a clothier and dyer in Glauchau. At the age of twelve he enrolled in the Latin school in Chemnitz or Zwickau.[4] From 1514 to 1518 he studied at the Leipzig University where, under the name Georgius Pawer de Glauchaw, he first inscribed to the summer semester for theology, philosophy and philology under rector Nikolaus Apel and for ancient languages, Greek and Latin in particular, He received his first Latin lectures under Petrus Mosellanus, a celebrated humanist of the time and adherent of Erasmus of Rotterdam.[5][6]

Gifted with a precocious intellect and his freshly acquired title of Baccalaureus artium, Agricola early threw himself into the pursuit of the "new learning", with such effect that at the age of 24 he was appointed Rector extraordinarius of Ancient Greek at the 1519 established Zwickau Greek school, which was soon to be united with the Great School of Zwickau[7] (Zwickauer Ratsschule). In 1520 he published his first book, a Latin grammar manual with practical and methodical hints for teachers. In 1522 he ended his appointment to again study at Leipzig for another year, where, as rector, he was supported by his former tutor and professor of classics, Peter Mosellanus, with whom he had always been in correspondence.[5] He also subscribed to the studies of medicine, physics, and chemistry.

In 1523 he traveled to Italy and enrolled in the University of Bologna and probably Padua[4] and completed his studies in medicine. It remains unclear where he acquired his diploma. In 1524 he joined the Aldine Press, a prestigious printing office in Venice that was established by Aldus Manutius, who had died in 1515. Manutius had established and maintained contacts and the friendship in a network among the many scholars, including the most celebrated, from all over Europe, whom he had encouraged to come to Venice and take care of the redaction of the numerous publications of the classics of antiquity. At the time of Agricola's visit, the business was run by Andrea Torresani and his daughter Maria. Agricola participated in the edition of a work in several volumes on Galen until 1526.[6]

A water mill used for raising ore

Fire-setting underground

He returned to Zwickau in 1527 and to Chemnitz in autumn of the same year, where he married Anna Meyner, a widow from Schneeberg. Upon his search for employment as town physician and pharmacist in the Ore Mountains, preferably a place, where he could satisfy his ardent longings for the studies on mining, he settled in the suitable little town Joachimsthal in the Bohemian Erzgebirge, where in 1516 significant silver ore deposits were found.[3] The 15,000 inhabitants made Joachimsthal a busy, booming centre of mining and smelting works with hundreds of shafts for Agricola to investigate. His primary post proved to be not very demanding and he lent all his spare time to his studies. Beginning in 1528 he immersed himself in comparisons and tests on what had been written about mineralogy and mining and his own observations of the local materials and the methods of their treatment.[8] He constructed a logical system of the local conditions, rocks and sediments, the minerals and ores, explained the various terms of general and specific local territorial features. He combined this discourse on all natural aspects with a treatise on the actual mining, the methods and processes, local extraction variants, the differences and oddities he had learnt from the miners. For the first time, he tackled questions on the formation of ores and minerals, attempted to bring the underlying mechanisms to light and introduce his conclusions in a systematic framework. He laid out the whole process in a scholarly dialogue and published it under the title Bermannus, sive de re metallica dialogus, (Bermannus, or a dialogue on metallurgy) in 1530. The work was highly praised by Erasmus for the attempt to put the knowledge, won by practical inquiry into order and further investigate in reduced form. Agricola, in his capacity of physician, also suggested, that minerals and their effects on and relationship to human medicine should be a future subject of investigation.[3][9][10]

In 1531 Agricola received an offer of the city of Kepmnicz (Chemnitz) for the position of Stadtleybarzt (town physician), which he accepted and he relocated to Chemnitz in 1533.[11] Although little is known about his work as physician, Agricola entered his most productive years and soon became lord mayor of Chemnitz and served as diplomat and historiographer for Duke George, who was looking to uncover possible territorial claims and commissioned Agricola with a large historical work, the Dominatores Saxonici a prima origine ad hanc aetatem (Lords of Saxony from the beginning to the present time), which took 20 years to accomplish and was only published in 1555 at Freiberg.[12]

In his work De Mensuris et ponderibus, published in 1533, he described the systems of Greek and Roman measures and weights. In the 16th century Holy Roman Empire there were no uniform dimensions, measures, and weights, which impeded trade and commerce. This work laid the foundation for Agricola's reputation as a humanist scholar; as he committed himself to the introduction of standardized weights and measures, he entered the public stage and occupied a political position.[13]

In 1544, he published the De ortu et causis subterraneorum (On Subterranean Origins and Causes), in which he criticized older theories and laid out the foundations of modern physical geology. It discusses the effect of wind and water as powerful geological forces, the origin and distribution of ground water and mineralizing fluids, the origin of subterranean heat, the origin of ore channels, and the principal divisions of the mineral kingdom. However, he maintained that a certain 'materia pinguis' or 'fatty matter,' set into fermentation by heat, gave birth to fossil organic shapes, as opposed to fossil shells having belonged to living animals.[14]

In 1546, he published the four volumes of De natura eorum quae effluunt e terra (The nature of the things that flow out of the earth's interior). It deals with the properties of water, its effects, taste, smell, temperature etc. and air under the earth, which, as Agricola reasoned, is responsible for earthquakes and volcanoes.[15]

The ten books of De veteribus et novis metallis, more commonly known as De Natura Fossilium were published in 1546 as a comprehensive textbook and account of the discovery and occurrence of minerals, ores, metals, gemstones, earths and igneous rocks,[16][17] followed by De animantibus subterraneis in 1548 and a number of smaller works on the metals during the following two years. Agricola served as Burgomaster (lord mayor) of Chemnitz in 1546, 1547, 1551 and 1553.[18]