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Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver

Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver Page of 251 Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
178
DE NATURA FOSSILIUM
Tullus. Copper scale armor is made, even today, by the Persians. Not only did the ancient peoples use copper arms but also various instruments for cutting such as the ax mentioned by Sextus Pompeius Festus that was used by the priests in Acerra in sacrificial rites.
There are four ancient folding doors in Rome. One very fine door is in the temple of St. Mary, formerly a temple of Jupiter. Another is in the Temple of St. Adria, formerly the temple of Saturn. A third is in the tem­ple of Sts. Cosma and Damian that was formerly sacred to Castor and Pollux. The fourth is in the temple of St. Agnes on the Numentana Way beyond Viminalis. This door was taken from the temple of Bacchus. Recently it has been removed to the church of St. Peter in the Vatican. There are four pillars in the church of St. John Lateran, one of them with only a small capital. Augustus took these from the plunder of Egypt. Be­cause of that Virgil writes, "Pillars rising from copper." There are six old candelabra in the church of St. Agnes that were brought from the tem­ple of Bacchus. Around the bases are birds with human faces and heads of rams and boys collecting grapes. There is a copper equestrian statue of Antoninus in Rome. In Naples there are statues of Scipio, Mutius Sce-vola, Deianira with the boy Hillus, Hercules, Jupiter throwing lightning, Mercury, and Venus. These were erected by Hadrian Guilielmus. The church of St. John, called the Baptist, in Florence, has three folding doors covered with gold. Some great buildings have copper roofs such as the castle of Prince Perlinus of Brandenburg; temples such as that of St. John in Magdeburg, Saxony, and of St. John in Luneburg and in Cerve-cius; churches in Annaberg, Misena, Gerlicb, Lusatia, and Stukard, Swabia. There are copper towers such as those on the senate building in Schemnitz; the church of St. Thomas in Leipzig, of St. Peter in Freiberg; and on the fortified city of Dresden. There are three towers at Neuen-burg, Thuringia, one within the city and two on a church outside. All of these are colored green except those in Schemnitz.
Refined copper is used in medicine. Since it has a certain acridness and, at the same time, is astringent, water in which copper has been washed will reduce the scar from ulcers and leave the flesh soft while ulcers that are not so washed leave the flesh hard.
Plumbum follows. There are three genera, one white {plumbum candi-dum, tin), one gray (plumbum cinereum, bismuth), and one black (plum­bum nigrum, lead). The Greeks call the white κασσίτερος; the black μόλυβδος. Both the Greeks and the Latins did not know of the gray that we call bisemutum. Pliny called the white genus argentarium because it is similar in appearance to silver and he also used the name album. This metal is truly white, so white that when it was compared with the third genus by the Romans the latter appeared to be black. The former can also be distinguished from the latter by its "voice" when the latter is not black but dark gray. The second genus is intermediate in color being blacker than tin and whiter than lead. Hence, if one does not care for the
Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver Page of 251 Book VIII metals, precious such as gold, platinum, silver
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