Stefano Borgia
Stefano Borgia was an Italian Cardinal, theologian and historian. Cardinal Borgia belonged to a well known family of Velletri, where he was born, was a distant relative of the House of Borgia, his early education was controlled by his uncle Archbishop of Fermo. From his youth, Stefano Borgia manifested an aptitude for historical research and a taste for relics of ancient civilizations, a line in which he succeeded so well that, at the age of nineteen, he was received into the Academy of Cortona, he founded a museum in Velletri, in which, during his whole life, he gathered coins and manuscripts Coptic, which may be considered as his major undertaking and achievement. Such was his passion for antiquities that he is known to have sold his jewels and precious earthenware in order to secure the coveted treasures and have the description of them printed. Borgia placed his scientific collection at the disposal of scholars, regardless of creed and country, giving them encouragement and support. Paolino da San Bartolomeo, Adler, Zoëga, many others were among his enthusiastic friends.
Borgia was not left to his chosen field of activity, was called to fill several important political positions. "He was admitted on all hands to be facile Princeps of the Sacred College." Benedict XIV appointed him Governor of Benevento. In 1770 he was made secretary of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide, an office of which he took advantage to acquire antiquities by the help of the missionaries—a help which proved always forthcoming, he was made a cardinal in 1789. In the period of the French invasion Borgia was given charge of Rome by Pius VI. After the proclamation of the Republic, he was arrested, but released, whereupon he resumed his studies and work of collecting. Cardinal Borgia was a participant in the Papal conclave, 1800, which elected Pope Pius VII. Borgia helped him in the reorganization of the Papal States. In 1801 he was made Rector of the Collegium Romanum, he was in the retinue of Pius VII when this pontiff went to France to crown the new emperor Napoleon. Having arrived in Lyons, Cardinal Borgia died.
After his death his collection of Coptic manuscripts was divided: the non-Biblical manuscripts were taken to Naples and placed in the Biblioteca Borbonica, now the Biblioteca nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III. At the half of the 19th century the manuscripts of the Museo Borgiano were transferred to the Vatican Library, where they are found today. Before the partition of the manuscripts was made the scholar and convert, Georg Zoëga, wrote a complete and accurate description of them in his posthumous work Catologus Codicum Copticorum manuscriptorum qui in Museo Borgiano Velitris adservantur. Borgia published several works bearing on historical topics; the museum of Stefano Borgia in Velletri was famous for the Charta Borgea where begins Papyrology in the west and the Codex Borgia, discovered by Alexander von Humboldt, is named after him. Esposizione del Monumento di Papa Giovanni XVI. Interpretazione di un' antica Inscrizione scoperta in Malta. Istoria della Citta di Tadino nell' Umbria, e relazione delle sue rovine.
Illustrazione su di un antica Inscrizione della Citta di Cupra Montana, contro l'opinione del P. D. Mauro Sarti Camaldolese. Apologia del Pontificato di Benedetto X 1752. Oratio hab. cor. Bened. XIV P. M. in die Ascension Dom. 1757. Meorie Istoriche della Pontificia Citta di Benevento dal secolo VIII al secolo XVIII. Opusculum Augustinei Card. Valerii de Benedictione Agnorum Dei. Vaticana confessio B. Petri chronoligcis testimoniis illustrata. De Cruce Vaticana ex dono Iustini Augusti. De Cruce Veliterna Commentarius. Breve istoria del dominio temporale della S. Sede Apostolica sulle Due Sicilie. Defesa del dominio temporale della S. Sede Apostolica in Sicilia. Borgia map Old Testament fragment This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed.. "Stefano Borgia". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton. Cites: Paolino da San Bartolomeo, Vitae Synopsis Steph. Borgiae
Tōnalpōhualli
The tōnalpōhualli, meaning "count of days" in Nahuatl, is an Aztec version of the 260-day calendar in use in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. This calendar rather consists of 20, 13-day periods; each trecena is ruled by a different deity. The basis of the tōnalpōhualli is unknown. Several theories have been advanced for this calendrical period: that it represents a Venusian cycle, that it represents the human gestation period, or that it represents the number of days between the zenithal passage of the sun in the tropical lowlands. On the other hand, some scholars including J. E. S. Thompson suggest that the tōnalpōhualli was not based on natural phenomena at all, but rather on the integers 13 and 20, both considered important numbers in Mesoamerica; the other major Aztec calendar, the xiuhpōhualli, is a 365-day year, based on 18 months of 20 days and five nameless days. A xiuhpōhualli was designated by the name of its first tōnalpōhualli day. For example, Hernán Cortés met Moctezuma II on the day 8 Wind in the year 1 Reed.
The xiuhpōhualli and the tōnalpōhualli would coincide every 52 years. Note that the symbols are arranged counterclockwise around the calendar stone. Tzolkin, the Maya equivalent of the tōnalpōhualli Aztec calendar Aztec calendar stone Aztec mythology Maya calendar Discussion of origin of the 260-day cycle Animated tōnalpōhualli
Tōnatiuh
In Mesoamerican religion, Tonatiuh was as an Aztec sun deity of the day sky and ruled the cardinal direction of east. According to Aztec Mythology, Tonatiuh was known as The Fifth Sun and was created when the Aztec god, sacrificed himself in The Primal Sun Myth, he is first seen in Early Postclassic art of the Pre-Columbian Toltec civilisation and is associated with war. Tonatiuh was thought to be the central deity on the Aztec Calendar Stone but is no longer identified as such. Aztec theology held that each sun was a god with its own cosmic era, the Aztecs believed they were still in Tonatiuh's era. According to the Aztec creation myth, the god demanded human sacrifice as tribute and without it would refuse to move through the sky, it is said that 20,000 people were sacrificed each year to Tonatiuh and other gods, though this number is thought to be inflated either by the Aztecs, who wanted to inspire fear in their enemies, or the Spaniards, who wanted to vilify the Aztecs. The Aztecs were fascinated by the sun and observed it, had a solar calendar similar to that of the Maya.
Many of today's remaining Aztec monuments have structures aligned with the sun. In the Aztec calendar, Tonatiuh is the lord of the thirteen days from 1 Death to 13 Flint; the preceding thirteen days are ruled over by Chalchiuhtlicue, the following thirteen by Tlaloc. The iconography of Tonatiuh’s attire provides a visual explanation for what his role as the sun god entailed; the deity is depicted with arrows and a shield to show that he is a warrior. Tonatiuh carries a maguey spine in one hand to signify that he takes part in bloodletting practices as a means of sacrifice; the importance of sacrifice is reinforced by depictions of balls of eagle feather or the eagle itself, which were markers of sacrifice. Tonatiuh's connection to the sun leads us to believe that the eagle is a reference to the ascending and descending eagle talons, a visual metaphor for capturing the heart or life force of a person. In some codices, a skull is placed on the end of his garments or on his leg, as a symbol of protection and to emphasize that Tonatiuh was a warrior.
This could be a reference to Xolotl. Xolotl was the god of lightning and death but was responsible for protecting Tonatiuh during his journey into the underworld, he was depicted as the skeleton of a canine. In fact, both gods are considered synonymous, due to syncretism with Nanahuatzin. Aztec calendar stone Five Suns Pedro de Alvarado Windows to The Universe page on Tonatiuh
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in North America. It extends from central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and northern Costa Rica, within this region pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. In the 16th century, European diseases like smallpox and measles caused the deaths of upwards of 90% of the indigenous people, it is one of five areas in the world where ancient civilization arose independently, the second in the Americas along with Norte Chico in present-day Peru, in the northern coastal region. As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures. Beginning as early as 7000 BCE, the domestication of cacao, beans, avocado, vanilla and chili, as well as the turkey and dog, caused a transition from paleo-Indian hunter-gatherer tribal grouping to the organization of sedentary agricultural villages. In the subsequent Formative period and cultural traits such as a complex mythological and religious tradition, a vigesimal numeric system, a complex calendric system, a tradition of ball playing, a distinct architectural style, were diffused through the area.
In this period, villages began to become stratified and develop into chiefdoms with the development of large ceremonial centers, interconnected by a network of trade routes for the exchange of luxury goods, such as obsidian, cacao, Spondylus shells and ceramics. While Mesoamerican civilization did know of the wheel and basic metallurgy, neither of these technologies became culturally important. Among the earliest complex civilizations was the Olmec culture, which inhabited the Gulf Coast of Mexico and extended inland and southwards across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Frequent contact and cultural interchange between the early Olmec and other cultures in Chiapas and Oaxaca laid the basis for the Mesoamerican cultural area. All this was facilitated by considerable regional communications in ancient Mesoamerica along the Pacific coast; this formative period saw the spread of distinct religious and symbolic traditions, as well as artistic and architectural complexes. In the subsequent Preclassic period, complex urban polities began to develop among the Maya, with the rise of centers such as El Mirador and Tikal, the Zapotec at Monte Albán.
During this period, the first true Mesoamerican writing systems were developed in the Epi-Olmec and the Zapotec cultures, the Mesoamerican writing tradition reached its height in the Classic Maya hieroglyphic script. Mesoamerica is one of only three regions of the world where writing is known to have independently developed. In Central Mexico, the height of the Classic period saw the ascendancy of the city of Teotihuacan, which formed a military and commercial empire whose political influence stretched south into the Maya area and northward. Upon the collapse of Teotihuacán around 600 AD, competition between several important political centers in central Mexico, such as Xochicalco and Cholula, ensued. At this time during the Epi-Classic period, the Nahua peoples began moving south into Mesoamerica from the North, became politically and culturally dominant in central Mexico, as they displaced speakers of Oto-Manguean languages. During the early post-Classic period, Central Mexico was dominated by the Toltec culture, Oaxaca by the Mixtec, the lowland Maya area had important centers at Chichén Itzá and Mayapán.
Towards the end of the post-Classic period, the Aztecs of Central Mexico built a tributary empire covering most of central Mesoamerica. The distinct Mesoamerican cultural tradition ended with the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Over the next centuries, Mesoamerican indigenous cultures were subjected to Spanish colonial rule. Aspects of the Mesoamerican cultural heritage still survive among the indigenous peoples who inhabit Mesoamerica, many of whom continue to speak their ancestral languages, maintain many practices harking back to their Mesoamerican roots; the term Mesoamerica means "middle America" in Greek. Middle America refers to a larger area in the Americas, but it has previously been used more narrowly to refer to Mesoamerica. An example is the title of the 16 volumes of The Handbook of Middle American Indians. "Mesoamerica" is broadly defined as the area, home to the Mesoamerican civilization, which comprises a group of peoples with close cultural and historical ties. The exact geographic extent of Mesoamerica has varied through time, as the civilization extended North and South from its heartland in southern Mexico.
The term was first used by the German ethnologist Paul Kirchhoff, who noted that similarities existed among the various pre-Columbian cultures within the region that included southern Mexico, Belize, El Salvador, western Honduras, the Pacific lowlands of Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica. In the tradition of cultural history, the prevalent archaeological theory of the early to middle 20th century, Kirchhoff defined this zone as a cultural area based on a suite of interrelated cultural similarities brought about by millennia of inter- and intra-regional interaction. Mesoamerica is recognized as a near-prototypical cultural area, the term is now integrated in the standard terminology of pre-Columbian anthropological studies. Conversely, the sister terms Aridoamerica and Oasisamerica, which refer to northern Mexico and the western United States have not entered into widespread usage; some of the significant cultural traits defining the Mesoamerican cultural tradition are: sedentism based on maize agricultu
Puebla
Puebla the Free and Sovereign State of Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital is the city of Puebla, it is located in East-Central Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Veracruz to the north and east, Hidalgo, México and Morelos to the west, Guerrero and Oaxaca to the south; the origins of the state lie in the city of Puebla, founded by the Spanish in this valley in 1531 to secure the trade route between Mexico City and the port of Veracruz. By the end of the 18th century, the area had become a colonial province with its own governor, which would become the State of Puebla, after the Mexican War of Independence in the early 19th century. Since that time the area around the capital city, has continued to grow economically through industry, despite being the scene of a number of battles, the most notable of which being the Battle of Puebla. Today, the state is one of the most industrialized in the country, but since most of its development is concentrated in Puebla and other cities, many of its rural areas are poor, forcing many to migrate away to places such as Mexico City and the United States.
Culturally, the state is home to the China Poblana, mole poblano, active literary and arts scenes and festivals such as Cinco de Mayo, Ritual of Quetzalcoatl, Day of the Dead celebrations and Carnival. It is home to five major indigenous groups: Nahuas, the Totonacs, the Mixtecs, the Popolocas and the Otomi, which can be found in the far north and the far south of the state; the state is in the central highlands of Mexico between the Sierra Nevada and the Sierra Madre Oriental. It has a triangular shape with its narrow part to the north, it borders the states of Veracruz, Guerrero, State of Mexico and Hidalgo. The state occupies 33,919 km2, ranking 20th of 31 states in size, has 4,930 named communities. Most of its mountains belong to the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt; the first is locally called the Sierra Norte del Puebla, entering the state from the northwest and breaks up into the smaller chains of Sierra de Zacapoaxtla, Sierra de Huauchinango, Sierra de Teziutlán, Sierra de Tetela de Ocampo, Sierra de Chignahuapan and Sierra de Zacatlán, although these names may vary among localities.
Some of the highest elevations include Apulco, Chignahuapan and Tlatlaquitepec. The highest elevations are the volcanoes Pico de Orizaba or Citlaltepetl, Popocatépetl, Iztaccíhuatl and Malinche which are found on the state's borders with Veracruz, Mexico State and Tlaxcala respectively. In the south of the state, the major elevations are the Sierra de Atenahuacán, Zapotitlán, Lomerio al Suroeste and the Sierra de Tehuacán. Dividing much of the state from Veracruz is a small chain of mountains called the Sierra Madre del Golfo; the natural geography of the state subdivides into the Huasteco Plateau, Llanuras y Lomeríos zone, Lagos y Volcanes del Anáhuac, Llanuras y Sierras de Querétaro e Hidalgo, Cordillera Costera del Sur, Mixteca Alta, Sierras y Valles Guerrenses, Sierras Centrales de Oaxaca, Sierras Orientales and Sur de Puebla. The Huasteco Plateau and the Llanuras y Lomeríos zone are located in the north and northeast, with the Lagos y Volcanes del Anáhuc in the center and north. Together, they account for over 50% of the state.
The east and northeast are occupies by the Chiconquiaco and Llanudras y Sierras de Querétaro e Hidalgo areas and account for about three percent of the state. The Cordillera del Sur and Mixteca Alta are located in the west and southwest covering less than 2.5% of the state. The Sur de Puebla is in the southwest and accounts for 26% of the state. Other southern subregions include the Sierras y Valles Guerrerenses, the Sierras Centrales de Oaxaca and the Sierras Orientales. Together, they account for about 15% of the state; the hydrology of Puebla is formed by three major river systems. One is based on the Atoyac River, which originates with the melting runoff of the Halos, Telapón and Papagayo mountains along with those from the Iztaccihuatl volcano and waters from the Zahuapan River, which enters from Tlaxcala; this river receives further water from tributaries such as the Acateno, Amacuzac and Cohetzala. The river has one major dam called Manuel Avila Camacho; this river flows west to the Pacific Ocean.
The next system empties into the Gulf of Mexico and consists of the Pantepec, Necaxa, San Pedro/Zun, Apulco, Cedro Viejo, Martínez de la Torre and other rivers on the east side of the state. This system has two major dams called the Mazatepec; the third is based on the large number of small lakes fresh water springs as well as some volcanically heated springs. The best known of these include Chignahuapan, Agua Azúl, Cisnaqullas, Garcicrespo and Rancho Colorado. Lakes include Chapulco, San Bernardino, Lagunas Epatlán, Almoloyan, Pahuatlán, Las Minas and Tecuitlapa. Puebla has many different climates owing to its range of altitudes, it has an average temperature of 16 °C but this varies locally. There is a rainy season from May until October with an overall precipitation of 801 mm; the state has eleven different climate zones. The centre and south of the state has a temperate and semi-moist climate, with an average temperature of 15 °C and 858 mm of rainfall; the southwest has a warm to hot and semi-mois
Vatican Library
The Vatican Apostolic Library, more known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally established in 1475, although it is much older, it is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts, it has 75,000 codices from throughout history, as well as 1.1 million printed books, which include some 8,500 incunabula. The Vatican Library is a research library for history, philosophy and theology; the Vatican Library is open to anyone who can document research needs. Photocopies for private study of pages from books published between 1801 and 1990 can be requested in person or by mail. Pope Nicholas V envisioned a new Rome with extensive public works to lure pilgrims and scholars alike to the city to begin its transformation. Nicolas decided that he wanted to create a'public library' for Rome, meant to be seen as an institution for humanist scholarship, his death prevented him from carrying out his plan of a public library, but his idea lived on with his successor Pope Sixtus IV who established what is now known as the Vatican Library.
In March 2014, the Vatican Library began an initial four-year project of digitising its collection of manuscripts, to be made available online. The Vatican Secret Archives were separated from the library at the beginning of the 17th century. Scholars have traditionally divided the history of the library into five periods, Pre-Lateran, Avignon, Pre-Vatican and Vatican; the Pre-Lateran period, comprising the initial days of the library, dated from the earliest days of the Church. Only a handful of volumes survive from this period, though some are significant; the Lateran era began when the library moved to the Lateran Palace and lasted until the end of the 13th century and the reign of Pope Boniface VIII, who died in 1303, by which time he possessed one of the most notable collections of illuminated manuscripts in Europe. However, in that year, the Lateran Palace was burnt and the collection plundered by Philip IV of France; the Avignon period was during the Avignon Papacy, when seven successive popes resided in Avignon, France.
This period saw a great growth in book collection and record keeping by the popes in Avignon, between the death of Boniface and the 1370s when the Papacy returned to Rome. The Pre-Vatican period ranged from about 1370 to 1446; the library was scattered during this time, with parts in Rome and elsewhere. In 1451, bibliophile Pope Nicholas V sought to establish a public library at the Vatican, in part to re-establish Rome as a destination for scholarship. Nicholas combined some 350 Greek and Hebrew codices inherited from his predecessors with his own collection and extensive acquisitions, among them manuscripts from the imperial Library of Constantinople. Pope Nicholas expanded his collection by employing Italian and Byzantine scholars to translate the Greek classics into Latin for his library; the knowledgeable Pope encouraged the inclusion of pagan classics. Nicolas was important in saving many of the Greek works and writings during this time period that he had collected while traveling and acquired from others.
In 1455, the collection had grown to 1200 books. Nicholas' death in 1455 prevented the completion of his vision of a public library, but it was finished in 1475 by his successor Pope Sixtus IV, named the Palatine Library. During the papacy of Sixtus IV, acquisitions were made in "theology and atristic literature"; the number of manuscripts is variously counted as 3,500 in 1475 or 2,527 in 1481, when librarian Bartolomeo Platina produced a signed listing. At the time it was the largest collection of books in the Western world. During his reign, Pope Julius II commissioned the expansion of the building. Around 1587, Pope Sixtus V commissioned the architect Domenico Fontana to construct a new building for the library, still used today, it was after this. During the Counter-Reformation, access to the library's collections was limited following the introduction of the Index of banned books. Scholars' access to the library was restricted Protestant scholars. Restrictions were lifted during the course of the 17th century, Pope Leo XIII formally reopened the library to scholars in 1883.
In 1756, Abbot Piaggio conserver of ancient manuscripts in the Vatican Library used a machine he invented, to unroll the first Herculaneum papyri, which took him months. In 1809, Napoleon Bonaparte arrested Pope Pius VII, removed the contents of the library to Paris; the contents were returned in three years after the defeat of Napoleon. In 1992 the library had 2 million catalogued items. In 1995 art history teacher Anthony Melnikas from Ohio State University stole three leaves from a medieval manuscript once owned by Francesco Petrarch. One of the stolen leaves contains an exquisite miniature of a farmer threshing grain. A fourth leaf from an unknown source was discovered in his possession by the U. S. Customs agents. Melnikas was trying to sell the pages to an art dealer, who alerted Father Leonard E. Boyle, the librarian director; the Library is located inside the Vatican Palace, the entrance is through the Belvedere Courtyard. When Pope Sixtus V commissioned the expansion and the new building of the Vatican Library, he had a three-story wing built right across Bramante's Cortile del Belvedere, thus bisecting it and changing Bramante's work significantly.
At the bottom of a grand staircase a large statue of Hippolytus de
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian polymath, naturalist and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt. Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring. Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in the Americas and describing them for the first time from a modern scientific point of view, his description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined. Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multivolume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture.
This important work motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity. He was the first person to describe the phenomenon and cause of human-induced climate change, in 1800 and again in 1831, based on observations generated during his travels. Alexander von Humboldt was born in Berlin in Prussia on 14 September 1769, he was baptized with the Duke of Brunswick serving as godfather. Humboldt's father, Alexander Georg von Humboldt, belonged to a prominent Pomeranian family, although not one of the titled gentry, a major in the Prussian Army, who had served with the Duke of Brunswick. At age 42, Alexander Georg was rewarded for his services in the Seven Years' War with the post of royal chamberlain, he profited from the contract to lease state lotteries and tobacco sales. He first married the daughter of Prussian General Adjutant Schweder. In 1766, Alexander Georg married Maria Elisabeth Colomb, a well-educated woman and widow of Baron Hollwede, with whom she had a son. Alexander Georg and Maria Elisabeth had three children, a daughter, who died young, two sons and Alexander.
Her first-born son and Alexander's half-brother, was something of a ne'er do well, not mentioned in the family history. Alexander Georg died in 1779, leaving the brothers Humboldt in the care of their distant mother, she did have high ambitions for Alexander and his older brother Wilhelm, hiring excellent tutors, who were Enlightenment thinkers, including Kantian physician Marcus Herz and botanist Karl Ludwig Willdenow, who became one of the most important botanists in Germany. Humboldt's mother expected them to become civil servants of the Prussian state; the money Baron Holwede left to Alexander's mother became, after her death, instrumental in funding Alexander's explorations, contributing more than 70% of his private income. Due to his youthful penchant for collecting and labeling plants and insects, Alexander received the playful title of "the little apothecary". Marked for a political career, Alexander studied finance for six months in 1787 at the University of Frankfurt, which his mother might have chosen less for its academic excellence than its closeness to their home in Berlin.
On 25 April 1789, he matriculated at Göttingen known for the lectures of C. G. Heyne and anatomist J. F. Blumenbach, his brother Wilhelm was a student at Göttingen, but they did not interact much, since their intellectual interests were quite different. His vast and varied interests were by this time developed. At Gottingen, he met Georg Forster, a naturalist, with Captain James Cook on his second voyage. Humboldt traveled with Forster in Europe; the two traveled to England, Humboldt's first sea voyage, the Netherlands, France. In England, he met Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, who had traveled with Captain Cook; the scientific friendship between Banks and Humboldt lasted until Banks's death in 1820, the two shared botanical specimens for study. Banks mobilized his scientific contacts in years to aid Humboldt's work. Humboldt's scientific excursion up the Rhine resulted in his 1790 treatise Mineralogische Beobachtungen über einige Basalte am Rhein. Humboldt's passion for travel was of long standing.
Humboldt's talents were devoted to the purpose of preparing himself as a scientific explorer. With this emphasis, he studied commerce and foreign languages at Hamburg, geology at Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg in 1791 under A. G. Werner, leader of the Neptunist school of geology. C. Loder. X. von Zach and J. G. Köhler. At Freiberg, he met a number of men who were to prove important to him in his career, including Spaniard Manuel del Rio, who became director of the School of Mines the crown established in Mexico. During this period, his brother Wilhelm married. Humboldt graduated from the Freiberg School of Mines in 1792 and was appointed to a Prussian government position in the Department of Mines as an inspector in Bayreuth and the Fichtel mountains. Humboldt was excellent at his job, with production of gold ore in his first year outstripping the previous eight years. During his period as a mine inspector, Humbo
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