De la Pirotechnia is considered to be the first printed book on metallurgy to have been published in Europe. It was written in Italian and published in Venice in 1540. The author was Vannoccio Biringuccio, a citizen of Siena, Italy.
(The second book on metallurgy, De re metallica, was written in Latin by Georgius Agricola, and published in 1556.)
Both books were translated into English in the 20th century. The translation of Pirotechnia was by Cyril Stanley Smith, a senior chemist on the Manhattan Project, and Martha Teach Gnudi. Both books were illustrated with extensive, beautiful woodcuts. The translation of De la Pirotechnia has more extensive notes and footnotes.
In 1912, the first English translation of De Re Metallica was privately published in London by subscription. The translators were Herbert Hoover, a mining engineer (and later President of the United States), and his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, a geologist and Latinist. The translation is notable not only for its clarity of language, but for the extensive footnotes, which detail the classical references to mining and metals, such as the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder, the history of mining law in England, France, and the German states; safety in mines, including historical safety; and known minerals at the time that Agricola wrote De Re Metallica.
I guess we are not the first humans to become obsessed with metals... :lol:
Merry Christmas!. :lol:
