ALCHEMY AND THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY METALLURGISTS

Abstract

CHEMISTRYhas often been portrayed as having evolved from alchemy. The works of Robert Boyle in the last part of the seventeenth century and those of Joseph Black, Joseph Priestley, Henry Cavendish, and Antoine Lavoisier in the eighteenth century are usually cited as being significant in turning the minds of men from alchemy as an art to chemistry as a science. Not always mentioned by historians of chemistry is the fact that already in the sixteenth century there existed a considerable body of chemical knowledge relating to a number of metals and allied compounds. There also existed during that century a small coterie of metallurgists who denounced the practices and frauds of the alchemists. Both groups were interested in the metals, the alchemists being particularly interested in gold and silver. During that century a considerable number of publications concerning the metals appeared. One group of important works by the sixteenth-century metallurgists is characterized by the clarity of expression, while the writings of the alchemists are shrouded in obscurity. The first metallurgist of note was Vannoccio Biringuccio (I48o-I539), who was born in Sienna and probably died in Rome. His life is closely associated with the Petrucci family of Sienna. He spent his last year or two in Rome as head of the Papal foundry and munitions. Little is known of his education, but during his lifetime he travelled widely in Italy and Germany visiting many kinds of mining operations and installations. His fame rests on the publication of the first complete metallurgical book based on careful observation of practice and experimentation. The book, De la Pirotechnia, commonly called the Pirotechnia, was published in I540 a year after the author's death by Curtio Navo under the auspices of the Pope, the Emperor, and the Venetian Senate. The Pirotechnia appeared three years before De Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium of Nicholas Copernicus and De Humani Corporis Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius and 60 years before the publication of De M agnete of William Gilbert, three well~known classics leading to the study of modern science. During the years, a number of editions of the Pirotechnia appeared in Italian, French, English, and finally in German. The English editions, however, were not satisfactory until the translation of Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi appeared in I942. This work was published by the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers. Because of the limited number of copies printed, the edition was soon very scarce and was reprinted in I959 by Basic Books in its collectors series in science, thus making the Pirotechnia available to all English-speaking scholars.