Jun 16, 2022

ROME: The alchemical door...

ROME: The alchemical door...

The only survivor of 5, the "alchemical door" or also known as the "magic door," "hermetic door," or "door of the heavens," is located at the "Nicola Calipari" gardens in Rome's Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II.

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Its existence is due thanks to Marquis Massimiliano Savelli Palombara (1614-1685). The Marquis was a passionate man of vast culture and hermetic interests, so much so that he had his own laboratory built in the mid-1600s to further research in the alchemical-esoteric field in his second residence of Villa Palombara.

The villa soon became an important salon for renowned personalities, scientists and alchemists of the time, hosting, among many others, the mathematical astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini and his close friend, Queen Christina Alessandra Maria of Sweden with whom he shared the same interests.

Legend has it that in 1680, on a stormy night, the Marquis hosted physician Giuseppe Francesco Borri. The doctor was said to be wandering around the villa's garden in search of a herb capable of producing gold. They did not expect that the next day, they would not find him again. Doctor Borri had vanished and nothing remained of him. On closer inspection, however, they found some traces of pure gold and various alchemical symbols and formulas near the famous door that he hadprobably managed to pass through....

The Marquis attempted to decipher these formulas without succeeding, and by virtue of the fact that he believed they contained the secret of the philosopher's stone, he had the symbols engraved on the 5 doors of the mansion and on the walls so that anyone could first unravel the mystery and decipher them.

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Today, this gate is all that remains of the Villa, whose garden coincided precisely with the present "Nicola Calipari" garden in Vittorio Emanuele II Square. On either side of it are two gatekeepers, added later in the late 1800s, depicting the Egyptian god Bes who, in the ancient Roman world are often found linked to the cult of Isis, the Egyptian goddess of life, healing, fertility and magic.

Engraved symbols include the design on the pediment of the door depicting two overlapping triangles, the seal of David circumscribed by a circle with Latin inscriptions, a cross connected to an inner circle at the top and a oculus in the lower part (symbol of the sun and gold). Along the jambs, on the other hand, the sequence of planets associated with the corresponding metals is depicted:

Saturn - lead

Jupiter - pond

Mars - iron

Venus - copper

Moon - silver

Mercury - mercury

To make the solution even more difficult, there is a series of epigraphs bearing mysterious messages. On the threshold, for example, is inscribed "SI SEDES NON IS"...a motto that read from the left means "if you sit you don't go" and read from the right "if you don't sit you go"...