A decorative woodcut headpiece featuring symmetrical scrolling foliage, floral motifs, and two bird-like figures or griffins facing outward.

TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS

LORD ANTONIO SORBELLONO,

MOST BOUNTIFUL COUNT.

A large historiated woodcut initial 'A' featuring a landscape with a building and trees in the background.

THE ANCIENT philosophers, those keen investigators of the secrets of art and nature, were accustomed to conceal the secrets they discovered by various methods and figures, so that they would not fall into the knowledge of depraved men. Thus teaches Saint Jerome, when he says that there are as many mysteries hidden in the Apocalypse as there are words. The most learned among the Jews also confirm that Moses, while describing the creation of heaven and earth in simple words, veiled the ineffable mysteries of secrets. Conversely, in our own times, those who have studied, and who study, the health of the soul and body of men, have sought to reveal—as if known and open through the confessions of the sorcerers themselves—everything that Sagae wise women/witches, Lamiae vampiric spirits/witches, necromancers, and that class of criminal men strive to plot against the human race, all in writing,