Vannochcho Biringuchcho ( Italian: Vannoccio Biringuccio ) ( October 20, 1480 , Siena - April 30, 1539 , Rome ) is an Italian alchemist, metallurgist and architect. For a long time he studied alchemy , metallurgy and foundry in Italy , the Czech Republic and Austria . For some time he was director of the mint in Siena, but in 1515 he was expelled from the city for changing the composition of the coin alloy. Being a master caster known to all Europe, he was engaged in the manufacture of military equipment in the Florentine Republic . Here in 1529 Biringuchcho cast one of the largest for that time cannons weighing more than 6 tons and 6.7 m long. In 1531 - 1535 he again lived in Siena; In the last years of his life he served as chief caster of the Vatican . In 1540 (posthumously) in Venice his treatise Pirotechnia (Pirotechnia) was published; subsequently reprinted several times.
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Biringuchcho was one of the first to notice an increase in the weight of metals when they were fired in air ( calcination , that is, turning into "lime"). His ten-volume work Pyrotechnic (Pirotechnia, from Greek - “ fire ” and “art”, “craft”; pyrotechnic - description of crafts related to the use of fire), which addressed many issues of chemical technology at the beginning of XVI century. In this essay, Biringuchcho cited a number of practically important information about metallurgy, mining and foundry, methods of assay analysis , pottery and glass making, etc. He described in detail melting furnaces, blown furs, various mechanisms, techniques and operations used in the manufacture of large castings - cannons and bells , considered methods of mining gold and silver , described the amalgamation technique and the method of preparing nitric acid . The last volume of the book is devoted to the preparation of gunpowder and various pyrotechnic compositions .
Some place (the ninth book) was set aside in Pyrotechnics and the presentation of alchemical ideas; in her, Biringuchcho sometimes quite sharply speaks of alchemists, calling them charlatans. Biringuchcho himself, when considering technological processes, clearly prefers to rely on experimental data, and not on alchemical theories.
"Pyrotechnic" Biringucho became unique for its time technical encyclopedia and gained wide popularity throughout Europe.
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 BNF ID : 2011 open data platform .
- ↑ German National Library , Berlin State Library , Bavarian State Library , etc. Record # 119049066 // General Regulatory Control (GND) - 2012—2016.
- ↑ National Library of Australia - 1960.
Sources
- Volkov V. A., Vonsky E. V., Kuznetsova G. I. Eminent chemists of the world. - M .: VS, 1991. 656 p.
- Figurovsky N. A. Essay on the general history of chemistry. From ancient times to the beginning of the XIX century. - M .: Science, 1969. 455 p.