A decorative headpiece consisting of four rows of repeating fleurons with mirrored scroll and leaf motifs.

To the Favorable and Kind-

hearted PHILOCHEMICAL

READER. original Latin: LECTOREM PHILOCHEMICUM—a reader who is a "lover of alchemy"

Favorable reader, the Creed original: Symbolum—in this context, a summary of alchemical principles or a "confession of faith" in the art of Lord Bernard, Count of Treviso A legendary 15th-century Italian alchemist said to have discovered the Philosopher's Stone after decades of travel, was published along with other alchemical writings in Frankfurt am Main. However, because that version is not at all consistent with my own handwritten manuscript—much in it being corrupted, and the best parts, which are the most important, sometimes being left out—just as also happened in the preceding golden Treatise on the Magical Secret original: Tractatu Secreti Magici of Lord Theophrastus Theophrastus: Refers to Paracelsus (Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), the Swiss-German reformer of medicine and alchemy, concerning the three blessed Magical Stones, etc.; I have therefore [presented] this once again in such a form original: in tali forma, alongside the beautiful and well-founded report of Brother Vincent, a monk of the Order of Preachers The Dominican Order and a Philosopher of Danzig, which has never been seen before, from the first