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Michael Bycroft gave the keynote talk at the Yale Gems and Mineral Symposium, held at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University on October 18-20, 2019.

Gems were at the heart of the transformation in natural knowledge that happened in Europe between 1500 and 1800. Historians of the scientific revolution have overlooked these objects, perhaps because of their association with magic and lapidary medicine, and perhaps also because gemmology is rarely taught in faculties of science in Western universities. Yet gems played a decisive role in early modern chemistry, mineralogy, crystallography, and experimental physics. The same period saw a rapid expansion in gem collecting, the cutting and polishing industry, and the global gem trade. Consequently, the study of gems sheds much light on the origins of modern science, and especially on the role of craft, commerce, and collecting in the emergence of new ideas about the natural world.