Algumas considerações sobre as origens da preparação de ácido nítrico Some remarks concerning the origins of preparation of nitric acid

Abstract

It is commonly acknowledged that the earliest recipe to prepare mineral acids dates from the XIIIth century, since it can be found in a text attributed to Geber. This paper intends to discuss this belief, taking into account recent studies on the Geberian corpus and also considering some ancient references to saltpeter.

Keywords

• discovery of mineral acids
• Geberian texts
• Biringuccio's Pirotechnia