A rectangular woodcut headpiece featuring symmetrical floral and foliage scrollwork.

Twelve Treatises,

CONCERNING THE PHILO-

SOPHER’S STONE.

By me, the author, who

2I LOVE 7 6 5 3 4THE RACE OF THE DIVINE POLE, original: DIVI LESCHI GENVS AMO. This is a famous anagram for the author’s name, MICHAEL SENDIVOGIVS. The Latin "Leschus" refers to a Pole (a person from Poland).

11. 13. 12. 16 15. 9. 10. 17. 18. 14

TREATISE I.

Concerning nature, what it may be, and what sort of seekers of it there ought to be.

Large ornamental drop cap 'M' decorated with intricate floral patterns within a square border.

MANY wise and most learned men, many centuries ago—indeed, as Hermes Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary Hellenistic figure to whom many foundational alchemical texts are attributed. bears witness, even before the flood—wrote much about the making of the philosopher’s stone, and left us so many writings that, unless nature worked wonders for us every day, hardly anyone would now believe that NATURE is true. This is because in past centuries there were not so many inventors of things; nor did our predecessors consider anything else besides nature itself and the possibilities of nature: