text: Andrés del Río studied analytical chemistry and metallurgy in Spain, where he was born. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Alcalá de Henares in 1780 at the age of fifteen. The government gave him a scholarship to enter the Royal Academy of Mines in Almadén, Spain, as of June 1782. He showed great aptitude. In 1783 he was given a travel grant by the Spanish Ministry of Mines. He used it to study in Paris, with the chemist Jean Darcet at the Collège de France.
  Del Río continued his studies at the Mining Academy in Freiberg, Germany, under the direction of Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789. In Freiberg he got to know Baron Alexander von Humboldt. Del Río went on to study at the Austrian Imperial-Royal Mining Academy at Schemnitz, Hungary, with Anton von Rupprecht, as well as in England.
  Del Rio returned to Paris in 1791 where he was a colleague (asociado) of Antoine Lavoisier, who is considered the founder of modern chemistry, and Abbé René Just Haüy, who is considered the founder of crystallography. As a result of the French Revolution, a warrant for Lavoisiers arrest was issued on 4 November 1793. Lavoisier was executed on the guillotine on 8 May 1794. After Lavoisiers arrest, Del Río escaped to England.