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BOMARZO
BOMARZO and the Sacred Wood by Massimo Agostini and Rita Zengarini
Bomarzo, in the province of Viterbo, is placed among the North-East slopes of Cimini Mounts and the wide valley of the Tiber, in an unpolluted territory rich in vegetation; it’s known for the “Monsters’ Park” placed in its territory, also known as the “Sacred Wood”.
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Cedan Memphi or any other beauty that the world previously saw goes in favor of the “Sacred Wood” that looks just like itself and like nothing else.
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The Garden fears no other wonder of the past and welcomes the visitor with this inscription, to introduce it to a surprising and deep path.
The “Sacred Wood” is placed in the Wonders Villa, risen in 1552 for Prince Pier Francesco Orsini’s will, called “Vicino”, who wanted to dedicate it to his wife’s memory.
One kilometer far from the little village of Bomarzo a terraced landscape welcomes a worrying amount of giant and luxuriant sculptures, diving into a wild and rich vegetation, very original for their disposition and dimensions.
The design made by the great architect Pirro Ligorio, who was called to work in St. Peter’s after Michelangelo’s death, was inspired by the idea of everlasting love.
Combining the myths of several cultures, he made an initiatory path to take the follower to the point of junction between the earth and the sky, death and rebirth.
After the embattled arch, entrance to the garden, the visitor, not knowing what’s waiting for him, is brought into a fantastic world populated by sphinxes, elephants, giant monsters, dragons, ogres, that both scare and surprise.
The idols and monsters living in Bomarzo’s Garden foretell us that the Wonders Villa will get in the anthology of the “Philosopher Houses” of Renaissance Italy, among which we recall Balì of Saltara’s Villa, in Marches.
THE SPHINXES
By Massimo Agostini and Rita Zengarini
 Just after the entrance of the Park, the visitor meets the sphinxes, sacred symbols of esoteric knowledge: terrible guardians of the forbidden door placed at the border between the worlds.
They watch over the everlasting becoming since the origin of the whole, when from the undifferentiated one rose the primordial hill, and the tree of life appeared on it.
The pride of the inscrutable look and the expression of the satisfied certainty of who’s happy with knowing the absolute truth, but the position laying on the rock, to which the sphinxes adhere with all their bodies, proofs the attachment of the physical body to earth, the need to be freed of the heavy metals of the profane world.
It’s traditional to consider the sphinx as the symbol of an enigma too, and the call to Edipo’s Myth is inevitable. The lion with a woman’s face asks questions to the follower to test its preparation.
SATURN – GIANO – FAUNO –
EVANDRO
By Massimo Agostini and Rita Zengarini
Not by chance, after the sphinxes you meet Saturn who wanted to dethrone his father Uranus, almost foretelling Edipo’s myth who killed his father and married his mother Giocasta. Often coupled with Giano, Saturn calls back the Age of Gold: positive hero and master of civility who, stealing secrets to gods, teaches agriculture to men. So the recalling of Prometeo and the Egyptian god Thot unifies in an original mythological syncretism the image-like representations of the cultures before ours.
Giano, the king who welcomed Saturn to Rome, symbol of ambiguity, represents both justice and the art to escape from it. As in Sacred Art, the Alchemy, the dualism between good and evil, generates the embryo of the alchemic egg, the Androgynous, symbol of inevitable human dualism, of who has knowledge and of the astuteness used to escape his own straightening. The one who chooses the way of metals and the heaviness of lead follows the way of Fauno. The one who instead pursues the work with faith gets the Evandro.
The triple Ecate goddess of crossroads, goddess both of parts and of ghosts, ambiguously stands in front of death, tri-shaped ghost that unifies the three times of existence: birth, life, death.
PROTEUS – GLAUCO
By Massimo Agostini and Rita Zengarini
 Life begins in water and Proteus, Neptune’s son, is the god that’s born from water to take every living shape. The Proteus of the Sacred Wood is surrounded by butterfly wings as a symbol of the passage from water to air.
Forced passage that every initiated must achieve as Glauco, poor fisher who drank a magic potion.
The head of the Proteus-shaped god supports the world, surmounted by Orsini’s castle, who dominates life and leads the way of those who still have to be purified by water.
MAUSOLEUM
A grave welcomes the visitor at this point, always more frightened. This reminds the visitor that the Wood is in contact with the dead, a dangerous place he can still run away from.
In the stone block a Nymph eats a pomegranate, a fertility symbol. It’s a fruit forbidden to the initiated, because it reminds of the carnal pleasures, tasting like earthly life. Because Proserpine ate a pomegranate, she lost the sunlight and was condemned to Hade’s shadows.
The Nymphs grow the heroes, they live in caves, that is in the most fearful part of man, in the place where death and rebirth govern the becoming of the initiated being.
Then, they see the birth of the new hero.
FIGHTS BETWEEN GIANTS –
HERCULES AND CACO
By Massimo Agostini and Rita Zengarini
 Here we’re standing in front of the powerful complex of the Fight Between Giants, among which we recognize the statue of Hercules ripping Caco.
We arrived, through the wood, to a point of great hope: in the cyclopean fight between good and evil, evil can be defeated by a hero.
Hercules is the image of human strength that, with a divine touch, wins on Caco: every man that wants to fight evil must have the demigod spirit in himself.
The placing of the marble group by a stream, symbolizes the need of purification of water after having touched evil.
The initiating street lead the profane to visit the dark forces of evil inside his most intimate self.
Visita interiora terrae
rettificandoque invenies occultum lapidem (V.I.T.R.I.O.L.) The hard achievement of the tasks brings the hero to immortality.
Il sofferto superamento delle prove
porta l'eroe all'immortalità.
TORTOISE – WOMAN –
WHALE
By Massimo Agostini and Rita Zengarini
 The group of sculptures is composed of a huge stone representing a whale, who has a tortoise laying on it, on who’s shell stays the winged woman.
The whale, simulacrum of a prehistoric monster (the Leviatan), represents the initiation ritual of death and birth: entering the stomach of the monster and getting out safe means having passed the introspection test (V.I.T.R.I.O.L.).
The tortoise, symbol of stability and longevity, with the carapace convex on the surface and flat on the stomach, represents the union between earth and sky. The group of sculptures is, in fact, the passageway to purification of air and the winged woman is the top of this transformation.
The wings and the lyre, drawn from a tortoise shell for the first time, is obviously a simulacrum of Ermes, the messenger god that kept gods and mortals in touch.
The group whale – tortoise – woman is, therefore, symbol of passage and push towards immortality.
PEGASUS
By Massimo Agostini and Rita Zengarini
Pegasus shakes the rock with its clog and lets water come out, with its wings it flies to the skies. It’s a symbol of passion and of the instinctive impetuosity of the horse, dominated by the spiritual will of man represented by the wings.
Thanks to the winged horse, son of Gorgone and Neptune, Bellerofonte wins the Chimera.
Once again in the “Sacred Wood” a statue invokes the need to abandon the earthly call to aim at the sky.
NYMPHEUM
By Massimo Agostini and Rita Zengarini
In the Nympheum three Graces are welcomed, sisters of the Muses, of the Seasons and of the Hours.
Representation of purity, they have two tritons at their feet, two lions and a fountain with to dolphins by their side.
The Triton and the Dolphin, animals bound to water, are simulacra of transformation and safety. Particularly the dolphins, carrying Arion on their backs, saved him from the sailors who were getting ready to kill him.
The tritons and the dolphins are symbols of regeneration.
The lion, simulacrum of strength, image of sunny vitality, represents omnipotence and pride.
It’s probable that the symbols of purity and regeneration, together with the initiating meaning, may recall the lasting of Orsini’s power.
From the website:http://art.supereva.it/luoghidelmistero/index.htm?p
VILLA
PALOMBARA
The Hermetic Door was built by the Marquis Maximilian of Palombara, senator of Rome, man dedicated to esoteric sciences, friend of the Queen Christine of Sweden.
Among the guests who went to Villa Palombara often, two deserve our attention: the Pilgrim and the hermetic philosopher Borri. The first one stayed there for one noght, but before disappearing, he left pure gold in the pot, generated from an alchemic mutation, and a chart with enigmas. It’s told that these very symbols were put on the door. Borri, considered a capable therapist by many people, but a cheater by the others, had an adventurous life. After many trips, he got a job in an alchemic laboratory in St. Angel Castle, where he died of miasma fever in 1695.To study the Hermetic Door you’re supposed to know alchemy.
Alchemy is a totally hermetic “science”, no philosopher has ever been clear about it and every writing was a revelation of the mystery.
The two “BES”, that only later, and not by chance, were placed by the sides of the door, represent the guardians who forbid the entrance to the magic garden.
At the center of the circular medallion lying on the door-jamb we find the inscription:
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Tria sunt mirabilia deus et homo mater et virgo trinus et
unus
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Three are the mysteries: God and Man, mother and virgin, triple and one.
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There are many triads the inscription may be referred:
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Father – mother – son
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Spirit – soul – body
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Sulphur – mercury – salt
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Sun – moon – gold
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Osiris – Isis – Horus
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To make an initiating trip you need a guide, in the Divine Comedy Dante is guided by Virgil, in alchemy you need an extra-human intervention, in the “Chemical Wedding” by Rosenkreutz it’s told about a magnet, a compass not to lose the Way.
In the medallion frame there are two equilateral triangles superimposed, making a six pointed star, Salomon’s seal, wonderful representation of the union of the opposites.
In the alchemic language the triangle with the top pointing down represents: water, the feminine principle, silver, the moon. The triangle with the top pointing up represents: fire, the masculine principle, gold, the sun.
The union of the opposites symbolizes getting over the dual, that brings man to a perfect interior balance. In fact Salomon was called “”Wise”.
Above the hexagon there’s a circle superimposed by a cross: the world globe. Inside the circle you can read:
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Centrum
in trigono centri
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The center is in the
central
triangle.
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The basis of everything is in the trinity.
Finally a small circle with a dot in the center, placed inside the world globe, is the last symbol we find on the jamb: the principle generator is the generated thing, God and Creation, the gold symbol.
In the door’s architrave there are two inscriptions. The first one:
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Ruach
Elohim
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Living
Spirit
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The Holy Spirit or Breath of God that can “breathe anywhere”. In alchemy this can be compared to Mercury, son of the sun and the moon, that’s called rebis or androgynous by the hermetics.
The second inscription says:
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Horti magici ingressum hesperius custodit draco
et sine alcide colchicas delicias non gustasset Jason
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The night dragon
keeps the entrance to the magic garden and without
Alcide Jason wouldn’t have tasted Colchide’s
delights.
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Jason, the man with only one sandal, is getting the initiation and couldn’t arrive to the gold of knowledge if he won’t be supported by the everlasting will represented by Hercules, that will let him defeat the dragon.
The entrance to the garden of the Hesperides is obstructed by a barrier: the earthly passions, represented by the dragon; only the dragon’s killing allows man to find its real immortal nature back.
On the left jamb, above, there’s the symbol of Saturn, the LEAD, first regime of the work, sided by the inscription:
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Quando in tua domo nigri corvi
parturiente albas columbas tunc vocaberis sapiens
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When black crows
will give birth to white doves in your house then
you’ll be called Wise
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Lead is black, the corpse of the dragon, the black King that must be cooked, according to Rosenkureutz, to let the miracle bird get born. It’s the Phoenix that’s reborn from its hushes, the reborn Christ, the dove sent by Noah to look for earth after the Flood.
We’re working for the black, the descent to hell, the solution for the solidification of the past, the breaking of the boundaries of what we’re not.
So Orpheus must dig in his subconscious to take Euridice back to the sunlight, to bring her back conscious. The Masonic teaching, in its extremely synthetic language, says: “DIG DARK PRISONS TO PASSIONS AND VICES.”"
On the right jamb, above, there’s the symbol of Jupiter, the TIN, and under the inscription:
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Diameter spherae thau circuli crux orbis
non orbis prosunt
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The diameter of the
sphere, the tau of the circle, the cross of the
orbit, don’t please the blinds.
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The gray of tin represents a slow passage from black to white, while the inscription reminds that the understanding of the alchemic symbols is reserved to those who developed the skill to see.
In some alchemy books, the sphere cut by the diameter, the tau and the Greek cross inside a circle represent cosmic vitality, while the two half-spheres recall the two states of the essence: the volatile or spiritual and the fixed or material.
On the left jamb, in the middle, there’s the symbol of Mars, the STEEL, and under the inscription:
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Qui scit comburere aqua et lavare igne
facit de terra coelum et de coelo terram pretiosam
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The one who can
burn with water and wash with fire makes a sky out
of earth and a precious earth out of the
sky.
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The body (SALT) passes through a subtle state close to air and the Spirit (SULPHUR), with salt, turns into a sublimed substance, precious earth.
Fire is the basic element of the work: I.N.R.I. (Igne Natura Renovatur Integra = the entire nature is renewed by fire).
Pantano says: “the mistake of all this art is in not finding the fire that can turn the whole material into real philosopher stone” and Raphael: “only the power of Fire can surpass the dispersive ghost of fire”."
On the right jamb, in the middle, there’s the symbol of Venus, the COPPER, and under the inscription:
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Si feceris volare terram super caput tuum
eius pennis aquas torrentium convertes in petram
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If earth will have
flown over your head With its feathers you’ll turn
stream waters into stone.
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In this state they let sulphur,
mercury and salt volatilize, kept on the PHILOSOPHIC
EGG, and the steam (THE FEATHERS) will make all metals
turn into SILVER. In this phase the man divided into
SPIRIT, SOUL, BODY (SULPHUR – MERCURY – SALT) must
separate MERCURY from SALT and go towards the CHEMICAL
WEDDING.
On the left jamb, below, there’s the symbol of Mercury, LIVE SILVER, and the inscription:
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Azot et ignis dealbando latonam
veniet sine veste Diana
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Through the
purification of Latona by nitrogen and fire Diana
will appear without
dress.
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The purification of the philosopher material, the apparition of silver, i.e. the naked part, the pure silvery ferment, DIANA, the MOON.
The purification is the “conditio sine qua non” to go to the final realization of the BIG WORK. The myth of death and rebirth is an experience that includes, more than the simple reason, the deepest conscious state: if the neophyte isn’t ready because he lacks fire, the represented event cannot give the expected effects.
On the right jamb, below, ther’s the symbol of the Sun, GOLD, and under the inscription:
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Filius noster mortuus vivit
rex ab igne redit et coniugio gaudet occulto
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Our dead son lives
he returns king from fire and breeds for the dark
wedding.
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SILVER, son of the alchemist, after having died and having abandoned the remains, relives, becoming GOLD.
It’s still the phoenix that gets reborn from its hushes, the Christ that rises to the sky after having been down to hell. It’s the solvet et coagula of the alchemists, the melting and bounding of the Christians, the death of the Black King.
The wedding produced an everlastingly stable Stone, the REBIS has become one, no more breakable.
If for a mistake we fell into the non-being, it’s our duty to give wings back to our soul.
On the threshold there’s the inscription:
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Si sedes non is
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If you sit you
don’t go
on
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The phrase in Latin can be also read from right to left: IF YOU DON’T SIT YOU GO ON, and it’s a real operative instruction, the only way to open the door of the magic garden, that would otherwise be an illusion.
On the step there’s the inscription:
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Est opus occultam veri sophi
aperire terram ut germinet salutem pro populo
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It’s a dark work of
the real wise to open earth to let the safety for
the population come out
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The earth feeds Telesma. Who knows enough, something learned from a really walked street and not from books, gives its students that sacred fire hidden in every man’s heart.
From the website: http://art.supereva.it/luoghidelmistero/index.htm?p
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