Arfe Y Villafañe, Juan de | Spain’s official handbook on precious metals employed in the American colonies

Arfe Y Villafañe, Juan de

Quilatador de la plata, oro, y piedras. Valladolid: Alonso & Diego Fernandez de Cordova, 1572

4to (200 x 140 mm). ff. [4], 71, [1]. Woodcut illustrations in text. 18th-century English calf, gilt fillets on covers, gilt spine, pink silk marker

Spain’s official handbook on precious metals employed in the American colonies

First edition. Arfe y Villafañe trained as a goldsmith with his father but also studied medicine at the University of Salamanca. He made tabernacles for various Spanish cathedrals and was appointed assayer to the mint at Segovia by Philip II. He was a leading figure of the Spanish artistic style known as Plateresque, which was based on elaborate gold and silver designs. This rare treatise discusses the theory and practice of Arfe's work at the mint at Segovia. It covers the valuation and refining of gold, silver and other precious metals, together with the valuation and cutting of precious stones. It describes methods of assaying, purifying and alloying silver and gold; part 3 concerns valuing precious gems. It may be the first printed appearance of the “square of the weight” rule for pricing cut diamonds, a rule repeated by Tavernier in his voyages, later known as “Tavernier’s rule.”

REFERENCES

Palau 16053 (“obra buscada”)

PROVENANCE

Earls of Macclesfield (armorial bookplate; Sotheby’s London, Sotheby’s London, 10 June 2004, “The Library of the Earls of Macclesfield removed from Shirburn Castle, Part Two: Science A-C,” lot 190)