El perpetuo engendrarse de la plata. Libros y experiencia en el saber minero del Nuevo Mundo (siglo xvii)

From the study of two Ibero-American mining and metallurgical treatises of the 17th century, we will discover the role that printed books had in the reorganization, systematization and foundation of artisanal mining knowledge. This knowledge experienced a discrete transformation, but its broad scope in the book field led to the establishment of a modern wisdom in accordance with the schemes of the new Natural Philosophy that, during the eighteenth century, generated the emergence of the disciplines related to Chemistry. Also, we will analyze the new roles that the experience and the book learning assumed in the artisanal mining-metallurgical treatises as a new formula that claimed some aspects of the alchemical philosophy, but that was challenged in the light of the demands of the Spanish Empire and the own production of printed materials during early modernity.