Gifted with a precocious intellect, he early threw himself into the pursuit of the "new learning," with such effect that at the age of twenty he was appointed Rector extraordinarius of Greek at the so-called Great School of Zwickau, and made his appearance as a writer on philology. After two years he gave up his appointment in order to pursue his studies at Leipzig, where, as rector, he received the support of the professor of classics, Peter Mosellanus (1493-1524), a celebrated humanist of the time, with whom he had already been in correspondence. Here he also devoted himself to the study of medicine, physics and chemistry. After the death of Mosellanus he went to Italy from 1524 to 1526, where he took his doctor's degree. He returned to wickau in 1527, and was chosen as town physician at Joachimstal, a centre of mining and smelting works, his object being partly "to fill in the gaps in the art of healing," partly to test what had been written about mineralogy by careful observation of ores and the methods of their treatment. His thorough grounding in philology and philosophy had accustomed him to systematic thinking, and this enabled him to construct out of his studies and observations of minerals a logical system which he began to publish in 1528. Agricola's dialogue Bermannus, sive de re metallica dialogus, (1530) the first attempt to reduce to scientific order the knowledge won by practical work, brought Agricola into notice; it contained an approving letter from Erasmus? at the beginning of the book.
In 1530 Prince Maurice of Saxony appointed him historiographer with an annual allowance, and he migrated to Chemnitz, the centre of the mining industry, in order to widen the range of his observations. The citizens showed their appreciation of his learning by appointing him town physician in 1533. In that year, he published a book about Greek and Roman weights and measures, De Mensuis et Ponderibus
1n 1544. the series of books that made his name started publication: De Re Metallica, a compendium of the then state-of-the art in mining and metallurgy, was completed around 1550, but was not sent to press until 1553, and did not appear until after his death in 1555.
In 1546 Agricola was elected a Burgher of Chemnitz, and later that same year he was appointed Burgomaster.
Metallica is considered a classic document of the dawn of metallurgy, unsurpassed for two centuries. 1n 1912, the Mining Magazine (London) published an english translation. The translation was made by an American mining engineer and his wife; the engineer being Herbert Hoover, nowadays better known for his later career as a President of the United States.
Text from the 1911 encyclopedia; however, the entry appeared to have been truncated somwhere in editing. I've added a note about Hoover's translation, and added some biographical info from Hoover's introduction; That source has more information that could be included here to replace the truncated section
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