PREFACE

...but original: "verò". The printer is continuing the list of defenders of alchemy from the previous page. by the most celebrated philosopher Pietro Bono of Ferrara Pietro Bono (active 1330s) was a physician and author of the Precious Pearl, a key 14th-century text that sought to prove alchemy was a legitimate science. in his Precious Pearl original: "Præciofa Margarita", now for the first time published by us in its entirety (not as before in Venice): and also by Lorenzo Ventura of Venice, in our own age, in a book dedicated to the Most Illustrious Otto Henry, Elector Palatine Otto Henry (1502–1559) was a high-ranking prince of the Holy Roman Empire and a renowned patron of alchemical research and book collecting., and published by us, the truth of the art has been vindicated. And since the same has long been done by almost countless philosophical men, there is no need for my own response: especially since it is not my role to teach, or to take sides in defense, but rather to bring the teachers of good literature and the arts into the public eye for the common good, and to set them against one another, so that the truth might be struck out like a spark from the collision of flints A vivid metaphor for how intellectual debate and the comparison of different texts reveal the truth.. Meanwhile, however, I will say what seems right to me, unlearned though I may be. I observe that opposition comes almost entirely from those who (even if they are otherwise most learned) have never practiced this art; for truly no one acts or judges more recklessly than the igno- The word is cut off and likely concludes as "ignorant" on the following page.