Anselmus de Boodt

Flemish physician, naturalist and gemologist (1550-1632) who served as court physician to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. His book Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia (1609) was a landmark treatise on gems and minerals covering their properties, methods for detecting counterfeits, and techniques such as diamond splitting, helping establish gemology and mineralogy as systematic fields of study alongside the contemporary work of Georgius Agricola. He also compiled an illustrated natural history of animals and plants running to twelve volumes with more than 700 images.