Georg Agricola’s De Re Metallica (1556) is an impressive work about mining arts and sciences, still used as a reference work to understand the mining world of his time and to analyze the relationships between scholars and practitioners. This essay begins by studying how Agricola presents the underground surveying, also known as geometria subterranea. How does the author’s mathematics relate to contemporary geometry or to actual surveying practices? Second, the essay contrasts his scholarly approach with sixteenth-century administrative and technical documents, (...) as well as mining sermons. Comparing the practical geometry contained in the De Re Metallica with different kinds of sources helps to question the relationships between the arts and natural and exact sciences in the practical settings of early modern Europe. Finally, it argues for a distinction between the inquiry on the historical progress of mathematics in civil life and philosophical questions about the rise of new sciences. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhile the emergence of a new scientific culture in 16th-century Europe is well known, the role of the actors of the Hispanic New World in this time of renewal of knowledge has long been judged marginal for two reasons: first, because the strong presence of the Inquisition in the Hispanic World has been considered by historians to have been an obstacle for research or scientific innovation; and second, because the discontinuity of the territories of the Hispanic Monarchy and the problem (...) of distances between Spain and the New World have long been interpreted in ways that suggest the marginality and peripheral status of the American colonies. However, some works counterbalance this dismissal and shed new light on the scientific activity of the Hispanic New World. This is the case with the treatise Arte de los Metales, by the secular priest Alvaro Alonso Barba, which would achieve remarkable fame and circulation, and would become a seminal work in the fields of metallurgy and mining until the mid-1700s. The article demonstrates that this treatise also presents ideas that can be traced back to a set of Paracelsian ideas combining alchemy, pharmacopoeia, and medicine, and studies specific examples of these ideas – the description of three fundamental substances as components of all matter, references to Epatica sulfuris, an oil capable of turning silver into gold and curing certain diseases; and the use of antimony – that together testify to the spread of the ideas of Basil Valentine and of Paracelsian influences. From this point of view, Arte de los Metales can be viewed as part of a tradition unexpectedly renewed by the author through many observations based on his own work in Peru and the discoveries he made thanks to alternative techniques. This demonstrates the richness and diversity of knowledge rooted in the New World, and links Alonso Barba’s scholarly activity to some of the great schools of thought that spanned the Early Modern European world. (shrink)