PREFACE

...vile men, most ignorant of letters, of all the good arts, and of morals, yet most skilled in every kind of wickedness. These men know absolutely nothing except for Ceres original: "Cererem." The Roman goddess of grain; here representing bread or food. and Bacchus The god of wine., with whom they are so intimately acquainted that they bear their marks—not only on their bodies, but branded upon their faces and noses A reference to the ruddy complexions and physical decline of chronic drunkards.. Nevertheless, they hawk themselves with grand words to great lords as if they were new Gebers or Raymonds, solely to boil down original: "decoquant." An alchemical pun; while "decocting" is a chemical process, here it means to "cook" or drain someone's purse until it is empty. their purses. They cannot even produce "burning water" aqua ardens: an early term for concentrated alcohol or brandy produced through distillation from wine—though they are certainly capable of draining entire barrels of that wine every single day. From such impostors, who are truly worthy of the gallows, let Noble and Princely men beware—unless, of course, they wish to make "potable gold" original: "aurum potabile." While this was a legendary medicinal elixir of liquid gold, the author uses the term sarcastically here to mean "gold that is drunk away" by wasting it on the impostors' habits..

But to return to the point from which we digressed: we now present to you, friend READER, the learned authors and true Philosophers who are the foremost authorities of this art. In the first place, we provide the opinions and, as it were, the Aphorisms of the Philosophers of the Pythagorean Synod This refers to the Turba Philosophorum (Assembly of the Philosophers), one of the oldest and most influential Latin alchemical texts, which takes the form of a discourse between ancient sages led by Pythagoras.. If you apply yourself diligently to these, and [if] God...