“Per la vertù propria dell’acque”. Vene minerali e sorgenti nella Pirotechnia di Vannoccio Biringuccio (1540) (2020)
According to a popular Renaissance notion, ores formed by combination and condensation of moist and dry vapors produced underground by solar heat, and the differences in the seven ‘main metals’—gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron, mercury—resulted from the influence of celestial bodies on different relative proportions of the two essential constituents of these vapors: sulphur and mercury. In his "De la Pirotechnia" (“On Pyrotechnics”), the Italian metallurgist and minter Vannoccio Biringuccio (1480–1539) contested this theory, asserting its incompatibility with what he had observed in Italian and German mines. Biringuccio touched another crucial point in his work. As every practitioner knew, water seemed to be “the first and proper companion of mines, and perhaps it was even the cause of their generation”. In fact, the "wisest" held it as a rule that “those mountains from whence abundant springs” originated, were also “abundant in mines.” These empirical remarks were the signs of an important conceptual change: one leading to new theories where alchemical and classical knowledge, first-hand observations, and the understanding of the role of water in the generation and growth of minerals and metals were incorporated and re-elaborated into innovative interpretations.
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