Georgius Agricola Book Plates " De re metallica libri " /German 16th Century/Modern Reproductions or Originals ?

These very nicely matted and framed book plates came from our local "Restore" Habitat For Humanity outlet. The plates are roughly 6" x 10.5". Framed they are 13" x 17" with non-glare glass. They appear to be real, written on parchment with hand painted scenes depicting construction of some kind. You can see there is clearly something on the back side of each plate as if they were once bound in a book. The top of one page says "Libro Ottavo" and the pages text is Latin as well. There are also penciled notes on the matte written in German. My Latin is very limited but I believe the one says "Book 8" on the top. The other something about "metal" not the rock band. Can't do much with the translation of the hand written German though. Real or Repo's I would guess they're souvenirs from a European vacation. -Mike-

Georgius Agricola ( Born Georg Bauer; 24 March 1494 – 21 November 1555) Courtesy Wikipedia

Georg Bauer 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 broadly educated, but took a particular interest in the mining and refining of metals.
Agricola's most famous work, the De re metallica libri xii was published the year after his death, in 1556; it was perhaps finished in 1550, since the dedication to the elector and his brother is dated to that year. The delay is thought to be due to the book's many woodcuts. The work is a systematic, illustrated treatise on mining and extractive metallurgy. It shows processes to extract ores from the ground, and metals from ore. Agricola described mining methods which are now obsolete, such as fire-setting, which involved building fires against hard rock faces. The hot rock was quenched with water, and the thermal shock weakened it enough for easy removal. It was a dangerous method when used underground, and was made redundant by explosives.