A lapidary is a text in verse or prose, often a whole book, that describes the physical properties and metaphysical virtues of precious and semi-precious stones, that is to say, a work on gemology. It was frequently used as a medical textbook, since it also includes practical information about the supposed medical application of each stone. Several lapidaries also provide information about the countries or regions where some rocks were thought to originate, and others speculate about the natural forces in control of their formation. Lapidaries were very popular in the Middle Ages, when belief in gems' inherent power for various purposes was widely held. Among the wealthy, collecting jewels was often an obsession and a popular way to store and transport capital. In the Middle Ages, scholars often distinguish three different kinds of lapidaries:
the scientific lapidary, the magical or astrological lapidary that sets the relationship between the Signs of the Zodiac and a particular gemstone, and the Christian lapidary, which describes the symbolism of gems mentioned in the bible, although contemporary readers would have regarded both the first two categories as representing scientific treatments. Lapidaries are often found in conjunction with herbals, and as part of larger encyclopedic works. Belief in the powers of particular types of jewel to achieve effects such as protecting the wearer against diseases or other kinds of harm was strong in the Middle Ages, and explanations of these formed much of the material in lapidaries. The medieval world had little systematic geological knowledge, and found it difficult to distinguish between many stones with similar colors or to recognise the same stone found in a variety of colors. The objects regarded as "stones" in the classical, medieval Renaissance periods included many substances now classified as metallic compounds, such as cinnabar, hematite, calamine, and organic or fossil substances including pearl, coral, amber, and the mythical lyngurium. There were traditions of lapidary texts outside Europe, in the Islamic world as well as East Asia. The Chinese tradition was for long essentially concerned with the aesthetic qualities of stones, but by the later Middle Ages was influenced by the classical Western tradition, as transmitted through Islamic texts.
Surviving and lost texts The tradition goes back to ancient Mesopotamia with books like Abnu šikinšu. Theophrastus (died c. 287 BC) treated rocks and other minerals as well as gems, and remained a significant indirect source for the scientific tradition; he was all but unknown in Europe in the Middle Ages, and not translated into Latin until the 15th century. He attempted to fill out with specifics the general remarks on minerals of Aristotle, and took an approach more compatible with modern concepts of mineralogy than any other writer of a full-length treatise on the subject until Georgius Agricola in the 16th century, widely recognised as the "father" of modern mineralogy. Both concentrated on the appearance of a wide range of minerals, where they came from, and how they were extracted and used. While Pliny and others wrote on how to detect fake or imitation gems, some, like Jean d'Outremeuse (d. 1400), described how to make them in coloured glass, which by the Late Middle Ages was recommended for use in church metalwork. Most classical lapidaries are lost; of the 38 works listed by Pliny (in Book XXXVII), only Theophrastus' text survives. There are hundreds of different medieval texts, but most are mainly based on several works that were redacted, translated and adapted in various ways to suit the individual manuscript's needs. The oldest of these sources was Pliny the Elder's Natural History from the 1st century AD, Book 37 of which covered gems, drawing on Theophrastus and other classical predecessors. Solinus was another ancient source, and Isidore of Seville an early medieval one. Later works, which also drew on Arabic sources (Avicenna's work was available in Latin), included the verse De Gemmis (or De Lapidibus) by Bishop Marbode of Rennes (d. 1123), the most popular late medieval lapidary, describing 60 stones, and works by Arnold of Saxony, Vincent of Beauvais and that traditionally attributed (probably wrongly) to Albertus Magnus. Versions of Marbode's work were translated into eight languages, including Hebrew and Irish, and 33 manuscripts survive of the English version alone.
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