A rectangular woodcut headpiece featuring a central heraldic shield topped with a crown. Inside the shield is a triangle containing a radiant eye (the Eye of Providence). The shield is flanked by two cornucopias overflowing with flowers and foliage, set against a background of scrolling acanthus leaves.

Art has no enemy, except the ignorant.

original Latin: "Ars non habet osorem, nisi ignorantem." This was a common Renaissance motto suggesting that only those who do not understand a craft or science would speak ill of it.

If you therefore choose to despise the gold of the wise,

Then in the Art you shall not escape foolishness.

Roger Bacon, on the gift of God,

original Latin: "Rogerius Baco, de dono Dei." Roger Bacon was a 13th-century English philosopher often associated with early scientific method and alchemy.

A brief handbook, briefly condensed, is enough for one who understands.

original Latin: "Breve breviarium brevite abbreviatum sufficit intelligenti."

For a small amount of money you can buy wisdom;

In this short writing, you need not seek out many others.

Only ask God for understanding: for where that leaves you,

The short work will not help, and the long you cannot grasp.

Preface.

Kind Reader!

One should rightly have great hesitation about publishing anything concerning philosophical mattersIn this period, "philosophy" or "philosophical matters" usually referred to "Natural Philosophy," which included the study of alchemy, chemistry, and the secrets of nature., because the whole world, so to speak, is already filled with them. Yet, because one becomes just as clever from one as from another,