Beschreibung:

AGRICOLA (GEORG) De re metallica, printer's woodcut device on title and at end, with blank a6, upwards of 250 large woodcut illustrations Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch (many full-page), one folding sheet containing 2 woodcut plates (as called for, sometimes listed as 2 plates) between p.96 and 97 (slightly trimmed), title strengthened with old paper on recto and verso of lower half of page (over-pasted on 2 line signature at foot of dedication, minor abrasion to device, old illegible stamp on blank margin), occasional light dampstains (slightly heavier to a few leaves of preface and index, mostly to lower margins and in fore-margin of approximately 20 leaves), early ink note ("Authoris damnati opus permissum") on title and small ink drawing after printer's device on final leaf, early limp vellum, ink lettering on spine, soiled [Adams A349; Hoover 17; Norman 20; PMM 79], folio (315 x 210mm.), Basel, J. Froben and N. Episcopius, 1556 Fußnoten FIRST EDITION of "the first systematic treatise on mining and metallurgy and one of the first technological books of modern times" (PMM 79). Georgius Agricola (1494-1555) was appointed, in 1527, as the town physician at Joachimsthal in Bohemia, the greatest metal-mining district in Central Europe. Here he spent his time "visiting the mines and smelter, in reading up in the Greek and Latin authors all references to mining, and in association with the most learned among the mining folk" (Hoover), research for his pioneering De re metallica.