gems, early mining, early mineralogy, early lapidaries, archaeology, archaeogemology, metals, Europe, Agricola

To create a technical language—that was the challenge faced by Agricola, a Saxon physician and humanist of the Renaissance, when he set out to write the first comprehensive technical treatise on extractive metallurgy, an activity that at the time was the source of Saxony’s wealth. Indeed, one cannot write a technical text without using technical language. This study reveals the linguistic and iconographic methods developed by Agricola for his De re metallica, a work that was used by mining operators throughout Europe until the Industrial Revolution.