TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND REVEREND LORD,

LORD FABRIZIO, PRIEST OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH

OF THE TITLE OF SAINT AUGUSTINE,

CARDINAL VERALLO,

Protector, Corrector, and Governor

of the Whole Order of Friars Minor of Saint Francis of the Observance.

BROTHER ANTONINUS DE PACTIS,

Professor of Sacred Theology and Servant of the Province of Sicily

of the same Order of stricter observance,

sends much greeting.

Decorative woodcut initial 'E' with floral and foliate scrollwork patterns.

ALTHOUGH all the most eminent things (Most Illustrious Lord, Most Ample Prince of the Holy Church of God) of that most Divine Celestial City of Jerusalem are not yet known to us by nature, though they are by the hope of our mother the Church, yet by the holy anointing of God, by Divine illumination, and by the heavenly knowledge divinely handed down to us, they are not entirely unknown among us. For God, the Best and Greatest, in the many flowers of the sacred page scattered here and there, mercifully pours out the nectar of wisdom concerning those matters of this most admirable City—wisdom that is above the sweetest honey—the liquor of which the saints of God and the sacred Doctors, like diligent bees, accurately collect; which the faithful heirs of God and co-heirs of His Son tasting—as another Jonathan—with the eyes of their mind enlightened, see in some small measure those things which God has prepared for those who love Him, and are kindled into the love of them. I, however, the least of all these, following their footsteps as far as I was able, God granting (though unskillfully, rudely, and inelegantly), have gathered this nectar and doctrine, and have unwisely stored it in the unadorned and unpolished vessels of my words: if, however, the vessels be contemptible, and