José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, a Brazilian politician, naturalist, professor and poet, has studied chemistry and mineralogy with other scientists in his trips around Europe, collecting data, conducting scientific experiments and discovering four new minerals and eight types of previously unknown species.

The mineral andradite is named after him.

Among his other discoveries is petalite, a lithium-containing material, first discovered by Andrada at the beginning of the eighteenth century on a trip to Sweden; it in this mineral that Swedish chemists in 1817 will first discover lithium.

Bonifácio also is the first to discover another important lithium-containing mineral, spodumene, from the same source, Utö island near Stockholm.