1494-1555

German mineralogist and metallurgist, born Georg Bauer, whose De re metallica (1556) remained the authoritative text on mining and metallurgy for over four centuries. Lavishly illustrated with 292 woodcuts, this work presented the first detailed, accurate account of sixteenth-century mining practices. His series of treatises on geology and mineralogy proved influential during the formative period of these disciplines. Known as the father of mineralogy, Agricola in De Natura Fossilum (1546) attempted the first systematic classification of minerals.