gems, early lapidary, Europe, early gemology, early mineralogy

It is well known that the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville were wide spread in the Latin medieval West, but the modalities of this diffusion is worth further investigation. Here, we examine its reception on two kinds of naturalistic works: the encyclopaedies and the lapidaries, until and during the XIIIth C. The period was the richest and the newest for the encyclopaedic production, where we see that the Etymologiae where used as a «tank» of naturalistic information, but was gradually less considered as a paradigm of the encyclopaedic genre by most of the compilers. His etymological approach, when it still appear, is no more as a way of thinking Nature in the XIIIth C. Furthermore, the auctoritas of Isidore as a naturalist – never as a theologian – is increasingly challenged by Aristotelian science, in the works of Thomas de Cantimpré, Bartholomaeus the Englishmann, and Vincent of Beauvais (Isidore is simply no more quoted by Arnoldus Saxo). In the De mineralibus of Albertus Magnus, Isidore subsists only, when his documentation is not available among other and more recent auctoritates. This article provides as well a rich information about lapidaries between the Ist and the XIIIth C., and a comparative chart of the minerals quoted by most lapidarists across this period of time.