The Chemical Basilica or Alchemical Royal Jewel (1623) - Page 1

⚠Heavy staining, foxing, and water damage throughout the page; central handwritten text is severely faded and nearly illegible.

Alchemy, Quarto size original: "Alch. 4^o^"; "Alch" refers to the subject of Alchemy, and "4^o^" or Quarto indicates the book was made by folding full sheets of paper twice to create four leaves. 19 d Microfiche Bound-with original: "Beibd."; an abbreviation for the German "Beiband," meaning this text is bound together in a single volume with one or more other works.

manu-?

script?

...?

The image depicts the heavily worn and stained parchment or paper cover of an old manuscript. Two modern yellow library classification stickers are pasted in the upper-left corner to organize the volume within a collection. In the center of the page, there are a few lines of very faint, centered handwriting that likely originally identified the title or author, though the ink has faded so severely over the centuries that it is now almost entirely illegible. A decorative double-line border can still be seen running near the edges of the page.