Carmela Panarello (independent scholar)
Ever since the Middle Ages salt extraction from either the sea or mines had been one of the main forms of industrial activity common to various European countries. Such proto-industrialisation promoted exchange of technical knowhow according to historical and economic conditions and work organisation. In the XVI century Georg Agricol documents the way in which salt is obtained on the shores of the Mediterranean ex aquis quas natura, aut ars, succis infecit, how, via industrial activity, such succi concreti could be extracted ex ipsis succis liquidis, the brine abundantly found in Volterra and Halle, or extracted ex lapidibus mistis as in the Polish salt mines of Bochnia and Wieliczka. His De re metallica illustrates such production and extraction by documenting how work was organised.
This contribution tries to show that there is a close relationship between food and culture. In particular, it aims to study how the language used in De re metallica to describe scientific phenomena and technological procedures has favored an exchange of knowledge between European populations and the circulation of humanistic thought.