Bartolomé de Medina (born around 1504 in

Seville Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...

) was a Spanish merchant known for his invention of the

patio process The patio process is a process for extracting silver from ore. Smelting, or refining, is most often necessary because silver is only infrequently found as a native element like some metals nobler than the redox couple 2 + 2 ⇌ (gold, mercury ...

Biography

In Europe, he learned the economics of

litharge Litharge (from Greek , 'stone' + 'silver' ) is one of the natural mineral forms of lead(II) oxide, PbO. Litharge is a secondary mineral which forms from the oxidation of galena ores. It forms as coatings and encrustations with internal tetr ...

smelting, and, from a German man known only as "Maestro Lorenzo" or "Leonard", he learned how to efficiently use mercury, and a "strong

brine Brine (or briny water) is a high-concentration solution of salt (typically sodium chloride or calcium chloride) in water. In diverse contexts, ''brine'' may refer to the salt solutions ranging from about 3.5% (a typical concentration of seawat ...

", to extract silver from its ore. Around the age of 50, Medina moved to

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( ; Nahuatl: ''Yankwik Kaxtillan Birreiyotl''), originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several ...

, leaving behind his wife Leonor de Morales and their five children. First settling in Mexico City, Medina worked on silver amalgamation for a year at the residence of Hernando de Ribadeneyra, before moving on to

Pachuca Pachuca (; ), formally known as Pachuca de Soto, is the capital and largest city of the east-central Mexico, Mexican States of Mexico, state of Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo, located in the south-central part of the state. Pachuca Municipality, Pach ...

. There, he built his ''Hacienda de Beneficio Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Concepcion'', which included paved surface ''patios'' on which he could spread ground ore. Located on Magdalena Mountain, he had access to running water and lower grade ore in the Old Discovery Mine dump. However, it was several months before Medina discovered that the brine and mercury method Lorenzo showed him in Spain also required

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

copper sulfate Copper sulfate may refer to: * Copper(II) sulfate, CuSO4, a common, greenish blue compound used as a fungicide and herbicide * Copper(I) sulfate, Cu2SO4, an unstable white solid which is uncommonly used {{chemistry index Copper compounds ...

. The

gossan Gossan (eiserner hut or eisenhut) is intensely oxidized, weathered or decomposed rock, usually the upper and exposed part of an ore deposit or mineral vein. In the ''classic'' gossan or iron cap all that remains is iron oxides and quartz, often ...

s in Spain contained this naturally as

pyrite The mineral pyrite ( ), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue ...

and

chalcopyrite Chalcopyrite ( ) is a copper iron sulfide mineral and the most abundant copper ore mineral. It has the chemical formula CuFeS2 and crystallizes in the tetragonal system. It has a brassy to golden yellow color and a Mohs scale, hardness of 3.5 to 4 ...

, but needed to be added to the ores in Mexico. This added ingredient, called ''magistral'', promoted the chemical reaction inherent to the amalgamation.Alan Probert, "Bartolomé de Medina: The Patio Process and the Sixteenth Century Silver Crisis" in Bakewell, Peter, ed. ''Mines of Silver and Gold in the Americas''. Variorum: Brookfield, 1997, pp. 90-127, . For this process for extracting silver from ore, now known as the patio process or silver ore amalgamation,

Viceroy A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the Anglo-Norman ''roy'' (Old Frenc ...

Don

Luís de Velasco Luis de Velasco y Ruiz de Alarcón (1511 – July 31, 1564) was the second viceroy of New Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the mid-sixteenth century. Biography Velasco was born in the town of Carrión de los Con ...

awarded Medina a six-year

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

. This patent covered the key ingredients of magistral, salt and mercury. Then on 10 July 1556, Velasco issued a joint patent to Medina and Gaspar Lohmann (Loman), for mechanizing the process using Lohmann's ''ingenio''. Lohmann's ''ingenio'', and one described by Miguel Perez, were influenced by

Georgius Agricola Georgius Agricola (; born Georg Bauer; 24 March 1494 – 21 November 1555) was a German Humanist scholar, mineralogist and metallurgist. Born in the small town of Glauchau, in the Electorate of Saxony of the Holy Roman Empire, he was b ...

's De Re Metallica. One quarter of his royalties were commissioned towards the Home and School for Orphan Girls. In 1557, his eldest son died on the voyage from Spain. Medina eventually returned to Spain and returned to Pachuca in 1565 with his wife and remaining four children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Medina, Bartolome de 16th-century Spanish businesspeople Silver mining People of Spanish-Jewish descent