Collection of Alchemical Treatises

present this little treatise, as I am
bound to do, having been warned that many
have deceived you, promising you
great things through beautiful and
deceptive words; And so that you
may no longer be caught in their snares, it
will please Your Royal Majesty
to read this little treatise wherein you
will find a great consolation
and relief for Your magnanimous
and Royal Spirit, for I have placed herein,
not in enigmatic words
as the philosophers have done, but
in truth as clearly as
I have been able and known how, the entire perfection of
the transmutatory art The art of alchemy, specifically the changing of base metals into gold or silver., which I wish
to prove clearly as much by the
sayings of the philosophers, as by
experience, which is the mistress of
all things, which I will make you
see in a short time with the help of
Our Lord Jesus Christ. For which I most
humbly pray He gives you the
fulfillment of your noble and royal
desires.

All the modern Philosophers with one
voice say that this science is a gift
from God; and Morienus the Roman A legendary 7th-century alchemist and hermit, said to be the teacher of Prince Khalid. testifies to this,
who is among the ancients, in a book of his
which he composed for King Khalid Khalid ibn Yazid, an Umayyad prince often cited as the first Muslim alchemist. King
of Egypt, who says that in the time of the
Romans they possessed this science
because they made it imitate the
seven liberal arts, and generally
in Rome almost everyone practiced it
in public, and because of that no
person could be found who wished
to perform any mechanical art; wherefore
by their pride and arrogance for
the riches and vanities of this
world, God took away their understandingent
of how to do it anymore, except for
certain holy men who, knowing
that it was a punishment from God,
composed it in parabolic books Books written in allegories, metaphors, or symbolic parables to hide secrets from the unworthy.
thinking that no one would possess it
without the will of God; which
agrees with the modern philosophers
that it is a gift from God;
although of this we cannot
testify except by the books that
the wise have written of this art by