3 - The Mines and the Court

Summary

Chapter 3, ‘The Mines and the Court’ is set both in the Ore Mountains and at the court of Dresden under August of Saxony (1553–1586). It offers a broader picture of the vibrant intellectual life in mining cities, illustrated here by the example of Annaberg. Local officials and technicians developed remarkable skills in arithmetic and geometry, on which rulers came to rely to map their realms and tame their capricious landscapes. I focus on the careers of two dynasties of practitioners, respectively subterranean surveyors (the Öders) and reckoning masters (the Rieses). After both patriarchs contributed to the economic rise of the city, their descendants became versatile engineers and courtiers of the Saxon Electors. They collaborated with university professors and instrument-makers, using their skills all over the Electorate and beyond, temporarily turning the court of Dresden into a centre of practical mathematics.