Andreas Libavius, as rector of the Gymnasium Casimirianum in Coburg, describes the preparation of metallic antimony by the direct reduction of the sulfide with iron in 1615.
A physician and chemist born in Halle, Germany, as Andreas Libau, he had attended the gymnasium and studied from the year 1576 in University of Wittenberg, then studied from 1577 in the University of Jena in the faculties of philosophy and history, there obtaining the academic degree of magister artium and attending the lectures of the faculty of medicine.
Working at first as a teacher, from the year 1581 in Ilmenau and from 1586 in Coburg, he had gone to Basel in 1588 and gained a promoted to the degree of medicinae doctor, in the same year becoming a professor of history and poetics in Jena, simultaneously supervising the disputations in the field of medicine.
In 1597, he had written the first systematic chemistry textbook, Alchemia, which included instructions for the preparation of several strong acids.
Some of his writings are published under the name Basilius de Varn.
