Book on the Universe

The page contains a large ornamental woodcut initial 'Q' decorated with floral motifs and an urn. To the far left, a partial woodcut from the facing page shows a bearded man in 16th-century scholarly attire wearing a cap.

To the candid reader.

Since, after comparing our Japhetic referring to the descendants of Japheth history, which fable calls Europe, I have determined that this monument, by which the universality of the Ishmaelites a historical term used for Islamic peoples might be brought back with us into the unity of reason, should be set forth as broadly as I can, not only explaining Cosmography, but especially setting forth those parts of Chorography from which the laws of the universe proceeded, I have therefore taken care to have a special treatment of Syria, or the Holy Land, and Celtic referring to Gaul/France territory reprinted along with their own legal principles. For when I have undertaken that the lands of Atlantis and the other regions that were unknown to Ptolemaeus Ptolemy will be reduced to a compendium by me, together with the history of their discoverers, and issued in Latin from the many writings of the Portuguese and Spaniards exposed in their own vulgar language; I am busy meanwhile, lest I grow sluggish in leisure, even while I write those things, to reprint these, and to the authority and reason...