A wide rectangular ornamental headpiece featuring elaborate acanthus leaf scrolls and floral motifs. In the center is a radiant sunburst containing the Hebrew Name of God, Yahweh original Hebrew: יהוה.

Preface.

God-beloved Reader,

A square decorative woodcut initial 'D' depicting a landscape with rocky hills and a bird perched on a high peak.Holy Scripture, which is the foundation of our faith, contains not only many glorious sayings, but also very many remarkable histories.

II. To understand these, the science of topography is very useful; therefore, it is to be wished that all readers might have some knowledge original: "cognition" both of Palestine and the city of Jerusalem, as well as particularly of the situation of the Temple, because this contributes greatly to a clearer understanding of the entire Old Testament worship and its Levitical ceremonies: the religious rituals and laws performed by the tribe of Levi as described in the first five books of the Bible.

III. The descriptions and the copperplate engravings found in various authors original: "Autoribus"—provided they are true to the facts—are also a good aid for forming a clear mental image of these places and regions. However, not a single one of them provides such a distinct and vivid idea as when one sees the entire Temple standing before their eyes in a physical representation and model.

IV. Through this, not only do many passages that mention the Temple—of which one previously had only a dim understanding original: "Concept"—become bright and clear, but the circumstances of the histories that occurred in the Temple also present themselves and impress themselves so deeply upon the mind that one, as if an eyewitness present on the scene original: "tanquam præsens spectator", is all the more fully convinced of the truth of the events that took place there original: "de veritate rerum ibi peractarum convinciret".