Image and Magic

in the Gardens of Villa d´Este

Own Images
and from
Internet

Dr. Guillermo Calvo Soriano

 The Cosmogonic Egg,
Origin and End of all things,
Center of the Life of the Spirit,
“Central Point” from which
everything unfolds
and towards which when
turning it folds backwards.
Symbol of Spiritual Perfection
and Perfect Knowledge,
it is a true Immortalized Pearl.
 Power of the Principle in its Circularity, Soul of the World
and Cosmos, Cosmogonic Egg and Sun, Knowledge in syncretic
representation, Symbol of the Life of the Spirit, relegated to a dark
space, condemned to remain buried in the Invisible, so its radiance
is It raises more of the Invisible Light, Dark Light of
the Supracelestial World, “Darkness” of a Hidden God dear to the
Negative Theology of the Solar Radiation of the Celestial World.
 The Orphic and Pythagorean Cosmologies, in a congruence of
Images, assemble the Mysteries of the Origin and the End in a Single
Figure, to make it an Original Power in which Darkness and Light,
Night and Sun coincide - "Black Sun" in that Being and Nothingness
exchange their Powers. From this Eros Generator of the Golden Egg
emanate, in a perennial radiance, the Seeds of Life carried by
the Spirit, which, fulfilling his Life-giving Gift in the World,
flows back to his Origin.
Everything generated by the Principle,
the One, in a Neoplatonic perspective,
and more precisely Plotinian,
of the Three Hypostases, is a non-being,
a non-existent cause, the inaugural
source of the “Nothing” of Everything,
in a radical alterity compared to World
of Being, that of Intelligence and Soul,
a problem in Neoplatonism that must
sustain, at the same time, the absolute
Transcendence of the One,
without which it would not be One, and
its radical immanence in the Multiple,
otherwise it would not
there would be multiples.
A Compendium of the World. This Egg figure as a riddle “Is it Nichil
Ovo?” “There is Nothing in the Egg”, Enigmatic Formula
in Orphic Dice: Nichil; Nothingness, Emptiness, Primary Chaos,
Primordial Darkness, the original Orphic Night generates
the Cosmogonic Egg at the same time Original Fullness and Chaos,
from which Eros escapes. The Luminous Orphic Egg is the Symbol
of the Cosmic Totality, that is, the All, The “Nothing” is the All.
 “Nothing”: Luminous Abyss
of Darkness of the ineffable deity
of an apophatic, negative theology,
inspired by Orphism and sung
by the Neoplatonists
of the Renaissance,
for whom the Original Egg
that emerged from Chaos,
is "Nothing", simultaneously,
in the instant of his tear, is Light,
Fullness of Seeds of Life
Eros represented by Eros,
Symbol of the Mythical Union
of Opposites.
Luminous Eros, emblematic of the
Movement of the Loving Soul that,
desiring the original beauty,
seeking the Mythical Union, blinds
and illuminates at the same time,
makes us see blindly,
illuminates the Infinite Light
in its Darkness.
“And the brighter, more blind,
and when blinding it illuminates”
Luminous
Eros
 “Nichil” by phonetic analogy that
the Pythagorean Tradition likes,
could be Michael the Archangel,
figure of Fullness.
For the Hebrews,
he is at the same time
the High Priest,
in all the perfection of his function,
and the Angel who guards
the Gates of the House of God.
He is a symbol of the Return to God,
to the Original Perfection.
He is the Psychopomp Fighter
who “transports the chosen one
to Absolute Knowledge.”
Michael the Archangel
 In Christianity, it is the Archangel
who defeats the Dragon of Nature
and weighs the Souls
at the Entrance of Paradise,
the last return to God,
the end and origin of the Souls,
just as the Cosmogonic Egg
is at the end and at the origin
of the Orphic Perfection,
symbol of the Life of the Spirit
that dominates Matter and Nature.

Michael the Archangel

 On the ceiling of the Great Hall
of the Villa d´Este Palace in a graffiti
we find a geometric figure:
Three Interlocking Circles, the center
of each of the Circles is located
on the circumference of the other,
at the level of this line, while a smaller
circle surrounds the center point.

In their interlacing, these Circles represent the “Circularity

of Knowledge in God”, they are the image of the “Encyclopedia”,
of the “Round of Science”. In a more Universal way,
they symbolize the Mastery of Nature Transfigured by the Spirit,
in the way in which the Archangel Michael killed the Dragon:
The Knowledge stolen from the Dark Arcana of the World,
of Nature and of Time, represented by the Dragon-Serpent.
 With a Neoplatonic approach, the Geometric Figure illustrates
the relationships maintained in its mirror generation,
the Three hypostases of the Cosmic Sheath of the Ovoid Sphere:
The One, the Intellect and the Soul: The One is the central point
of the small Immovable Circle, Figure of the Intellect,
whose rays are in constant communication with him.
 The Soul is the Great Mobile Circle that, in its dynamics, generates
the two Circles of the Same and the Other, the Indivisible and the
Divisible that unfold in their attraction to the One and rotate in the
opposite direction to produce a Figure of Chiasma, of Cruz, who sees
the teeth of each of these interlocking circles, each turning in one
direction. Figure on the plan of the Armillary Sphere that illustrates
the unfolding in three dimensions of the first Chiasm, of the Chi
that articulates the two inverted circles, according to the Timaeus.
 It is an Abbreviation of the World. Illustrates both the Specular
Generation of the Three Hypostases, highlighting the Dynamics
of the Soul of the World that is Movement, Knowledge
in its Encyclopedic Dimension, a dynamic figure where Everything
refers to Everything, in perfect Circularity, and a figure
of the Spirit, in its fullness that encompasses Nature and Time.
 This intertwining returns on itself in a movement of extension
and recession, of unfolding and retreating around the Center
and towards the Center, towards that “Central Point” that this
“Encyclopedia” of Orphic Inspiration Theology is added to they
identify at the same time the Knowledge, the Cosmos and the Spirit
through this Egg, Image of the World, Simulacrum Mundi
of the Orphics, Symbol of Perfection and Integrity.
 Empedocles
in the Mechanics of the World,
places Hate at its Center,
Division and Love, a mechanical
union whose gear
of the 2 opposite circles
constitutes “the Twin Action, the
Double Turning
of the Wheel
in Opposite Directions”
that governs the World.
 This Pentadic Cross, a figure of Chi whose “Central Point”
constitutes at the same time an Image of the Soul, the Cosmos,
Knowledge and God, the Cosmic Solar Point and the Solar Christ
that commands the Harmony of the World, is an ancient Symbol:
Proclus maintains that the Figure resulting from the intersection
of the two branches adapts to both the Soul and the World,
and recalls that the Egyptians knew a similar Fate
where the Chi was surrounded by a Circle that represented
the Symbol of the Soul of the World.
 In the Center of this Seal of Interlocking Circles is the Point
that Hides all the Generating Power of the Universe,
of the One at the Origin of Things on the Path. Generating Point
of the Circle that, according to Proclus, “is totally present centrally
in the Center because the Center is the Cause,
and the Circle is what is caused by it”.
 A whole Metaphysics
of the Point and the Circle
inhabits the Neoplatonic
Reflection, which,
during the Renaissance,
appropriated the Formulation
of Nicolás de Cues, 1401-1464,
according to which:
“God is a Circle whose Center
is everywhere and
the Circumference nowhere”.
 Dante,
in the early fourteenth century,
sees the Divine Point as the End
Point of his Divine Comedy.
In his admirable work,
Les Métamorphoses du Cercle,
Georges Poulet returns
on the evolution
of this Metaphysics
of the Circle in the
Renaissance, present in a series
of Neoplatonic Authors
who take up the Cussian
Formulations making them
progressively evolve...
Dante
 Giordano Bruno,
at the end of the 16th century,
represents Himself
an Infinite Universe,
in whose Center are all its points.
For him, “To be in the Center
of the World is, therefore,
to be in the Center of Infinity,
to be in the Center of God”,
the Soul extends “in the Divine
Immensity in which the Universes
are contained as Things”.

Giordano Bruno
 In the middle of the 16th century, with an extraordinary fashion
effect, all the Neoplatonists sing the Cusian theme, a Figure of God
trapped in a Dynamics close to that of the Interlocking Circles
of the Ovoid Seal of the Great Hall, Circles whose Centers
are situated in the circumference of the other circles, which,
if we multiply them ad infinitum, in their configuration,
come close to the Cusan definition of God
sending the Center everywhere and the Circumference nowhere.
 It was Georges Poulet La Boderie, of the Writers of his time,
who multiplied more variations on the Cusian Theme of the Circle or
the Sphere: “God is, The Infinite Sun, whose first roundness
Eternally produced Rays of Light. So much of the roundness,
that the Eternal Heat goes forth Eternally from the Ray of Courage.
It is the Unlimited Circle, of which the Central Point is in each place,
and whose spherical rotation is never found,
and the surroundings of the radii turn around”.
 La Boderie,
in the “Seventh Circle”
of the Encyclical, says:
“God is both the Center from
which the Universe comes
and the Infinite Sphere
that contains it as a Point”,
as the Invisible Cosmic Egg
on the ceiling of the Great Hall,
at at the same time Point
and Ovoid, “A whole”,
or Armillary Sphere
of the Source of the Dragons,
which Hides the dynamics
of the Soul of the World
and the Cosmos, and by God
and the Knowledge
that fills and envelops it.
The Maximum, the Sphere, the “Circle without Circles”,
and the Minimum, the Center, merge.
The Circumference is equal to the Center,
and each Point of the Sphere is the Center.
 The Figure of the Chiasm,
which winds the Inverted Circles,
intertwined and multiplied
ad infinitum,
opens up to the “Circularity
of Knowledge in God”,
Knowledge by
which the Knowledge of the Soul
and the World,
by its Circular Dynamics,
adheres to its Object
reproducing its Movement.
 In this Machine, everything is at the same time in the Center
and in each Point of the Sphere, in the manner of the Soul that,
as a mediating force between the Spirit and the Body,
fears at the same time to carry itself in all Things
and resides permanently in your Center.
 All these Ancient Sages,
who sought to ensure
the presence
of Divine Beings
by erecting Shrines
and Statues,
showed insight into
the Nature of the Whole,

they understood that this Soul of the World,

can be carried everywhere and can be collected more easily
if it is It has provided you with a suitable receptacle,
a place to collect some portion or phase,
that can reproduce or capture your image as a Mirror.
 In Dupérac's Engraving, the Garden is offered to the eye
as an Amphitheater that develops its terraces on the slopes
of the Tivoli Hill. In its Heart resides the Fountain of the Dragons,
an Allegory that represents the Armillary Sphere,
Emblem of the Soul of the World.
 The Fountain houses two statues of Gladiators that evoke
the figure of the Celestial Circus illustrated by the Armillary Sphere,
when it describes the Movements of the Stars in the Sand of Heaven.
The statues of Ares and Perseus symbolize the specific Dynamics of
both the Cosmos and the Soul of the World, reinforced by Hercules,
Protector of the “White Solar Eagle that kills the Dragon”,
by Hipólito d'Este, in his action against the Hundred-Headed
Dragon, figure of the Passions of the World and of the Cardinal.
 The Motto of Hippolytus develops an Extraordinary Power,
when his Solar White Eagle defeats the Dragon-Serpent
of Nature and Time, which hides the Cosmic Egg, thanks
to the Search for Wisdom that makes the Orphic, Neoplatonic,
Hebrew and Christian, attested by all the Allegories of the Villa.
 Hippolito d'Este's Motto “Ab insomni non custodita Dracone”
“Unprotected by the Sleepless Dragon”

They seem to represent these Golden Apples that

the Dragon-Serpent of Nature or Infinite Time no longer possesses.
Apples that the White Eagle would have taken, represent the
Redeemed Soul of Hippolytus, pearl of the Purified Soul in the Paths
of Knowledge and Initiation because we have crossed the meanders.
 End of the Ascent
of the Cosmic Staircase
illustrated by the Garden,
the Sun is both the End
and the Origin. The Source of Leda
Associated with the figure
of Leda, in which we recognize
an Image of Unity symbolized
by the Egg that, in the brilliance
of its rest, marks the first cut,
the first dispersion of the Monad
that became Diada, the Sun.
 The Sun, at the same time
Center and Life of the World,
Radiant Light, possesses,
by its Union
with the Principle,
the immutable durability
of its Luminous Source.
Visible image
of the first Invisible Principle,
“Living Statue of God”
according to Marsilio Ficino,
the Sun is testimony to the Radiant Power of the One
in its infinite irradiation, Power that gives it
the Majesty of the Central Figure of the Universe,
from which everything proceeds and the that everything returns.
 Intelligence
of the World,
the Sun Governs
its Harmony Threshold
of the point
of Primordial
and invisible Energy
that spreads
through its rays
the Spiritual Power
that Emanates
from the Principle,
it is the Term towards which the Spirit flows,
attracted by it in an incessant deployment - retired,
Immobile Circle whose Rays Emanate and Converge
towards the Center, in continuous Movement.
Privileged Symbol. Intellect for Neoplatonists like Ficino:
It is the Vision of the Own Light that drives the Mind
to try to recover the Divine Light, and in the Attraction
that it exercises True Love is found. Light at Birth,
“The Universe becomes Love”, Power of Return,
Desire of Union with its Principle,
Beauty of the Luminous Radiance from which it radiates.
 This figure of the Return is the one who commands the Allegories
in the Garden, from the “Procession” of the Spirit in the Generation,
until that Mysterious moment of his “Conversion” and then
the Ascent of him through the Figures of Knowledge and Initiation.
 Cosmic Egg,
Divine Image of the Soul,
of the World
and of Knowledge,
Cosmic Egg and Sun:
the Source of Leda
is the Image of the Spreading
and the Reunion of the Spirit.

The Fountain of Leda

 The “Conversion” commands
the Neoplatonic Vision
tinged with Orphism
and Pythagoreanism
that waters the garden,
and more particularly
with two Great Figures:
The Cosmic Eros, which breaks
its shell at the Source of Nature,
and that of the Orphic Dionysus
presented
by the Source of the Owl.

The Source of Nature

 Two Fountains animated by Artifices of Water
in a Continuous Movement that perpetually
returns to itself, Emblem of the Circular
Cosmic Dynamics that governs the World
according to the Neoplatonists.
The Winged Love breaking the shell of him
is Phanes, the “Luminous!, or Protogonos,
the “Firstborn”, the First Divine Entity.
Phanes,

According to the Orphics, he expresses

“the idea of Manifested Light,
of Primordiality, of Intelligence, Desire,
Impulse that reveals the Latent World
that concealed the Original Egg.
Phanes is the hatching
and dispersal of the Seeds of Life.
 In contrast,
the Orphic Dionysus,
suggested in the Fountain
of the Owl, expresses
through his Passion
the maximum dispersion.
God of the 6th Generation
in the Orphic Cosmogony,
Dionysus comes to lead
the line of Nyx, the Night,
which generates Phanes, then,
by successive dismemberments,
Uranos, Cronos and Zeus.

The Fountain of the Owl

 Dionysus is the current god of Humanity, and his Passion figures
the last dismemberment, the last dispersion of the Spirit
in the World and Matter. Considered as the last phase of the Orphic
Cosmogony, the Passion of Dionysus constitutes a Promise
of Reunion, of “Rebirth in the Spirit, of Salvation”, that is,
of the Return to the Beginning. Announcement that the Fountain
of the Owl seems to want to hammer incessantly
in the Perpetual Movement of its hydraulic Automaton.
 Having both lived the Passion
of the Maximum Dispersion, Eros of Ligth
and the god Child Dionysus must be compared
to two other figures placed
in the Center of the Garden,
the Hydrophoric Priestess,
and the allegories of Eternity and Cybele,
according to the Parisian Manuscript.
Eternity and Cybele, the archetype,
the Matrix, the Universal Nurse.

The Hydrophoric Priestess

Cronos and Nyx generate the Cosmogonic Egg produced in Nyx's
hollow, from where, under the effect of time that tears her shell,
Phanes the “Luminous” will emerge: a Dark Mother gives birth
to an Eros of Light in the radiance of a Eggshell that breaks,
Mythical Moment of the Coincidence of Opposites,
in which Darkness and Light are Joined.
 The Cosmogonic Orphic Egg
appears in the Garden,
both in the Fountain of Nature
and in Leda.
This Egg Symbolizes the Origin,
the Uniqueness, the Original
Integrity and Perfection, the End,
the Fullness of the Spirit
in the World, and the Primordial
Fullness to be Reconquered.
The Egg is above all the Envelope
of what the Cosmos was,
is and will be:
the Order to which Man belongs.
 In its fracture, the Egg reveals
the latent Cosmos that it contains,
it gives all things the possibility
of appearing, but, in its perfection,
it represents the end of all things
, the return and absorption
in the original principle,
“Associating the Orphic Cosmic Egg
with the Sun, Golden Egg ”,
a Luminous Egg that shines
like the Sun, the Source of Leda,
is inscribed in the Lunar-Solar
Cosmology and Eschatology
of the Pythagoreans, eschatology
inspired by Egypt and the East, which
sees in the Sun the image
of Cosmic Perfection, Star at
the origin and at the end of all things. The Source of Leda
 Ares is the figure of Division,
of Hate, while Perseus
is the Emblem of Love,
of Union, through attachment
to Andromeda,
icon of the Soul,
whom he frees from the chains
that bound her to the rock
of the Tomb of the Bodies
at a time when the Dragon
was going to grab her.
 Ares and Perseus,
Hate and Love,
Antagonic and
Complementary Principles,
make the World Rotate
in the Image of the Soul
of the World with
their two Circles,
one of Union and
the other of Division.
The Soul of the World
and the Body of the World
proceed from
the same Movement,
that of the two Antagonic
Circles that produce
the Harmony of the World.
 Both Concord and Discord,
Dynamic Balance of the Cosmos
and the Soul,
ruled by the Concordance
of Opposites.
For the Orphics, Aphrodite,
the Celestial Venus
is emblematic of the Force
of Spirit and Love,
which dominates Ares.

Aphrodite, the Celestial Venus

The Fountain of the Dragons

In the Heart of the Fountain of the Dragons is the Divine Mystery

that sees the Soul of the World and the Cosmos,
Moved by the same Movement, approved by Ficino,
that the Soul is in the Body, as well as the Body in the Soul,
inside and out it envelops you, invigorating the Whole.
 The Golden
Apples

Cardinal
Hippolitus
d´Este
The Fountain of the Dragons is full of this Hermetic knowledge
captured by the “Solar White Eagle” of Hippolytus,
by Killing the Dragon that Hides the Arcana of Nature, manifests the
Power of the Spirit and appropriates the Mystery
of the “Circularity of Knowledge in God” the Golden Apples,
Gnostic and Hermetic Purifying Knowledge that returns
the Soul of its Possessor to its Divine and Celestial Dimension
and turns it into a “Hero” of this World.
 A Metaphysics of the Circle.
The image on the ceiling
of the Great Hall and that of the
Fountain of the Dragons coincide.
In the Heart of the Harmony
of the World, in these Mysterious
Arcana guarded by the Dragon
awakened by Nature, Time
and Passions, turns this double
wheel whose Circles mesh
in opposite directions,
assembling the Same with
the Other, Union with Division,
Love with Hatred, around a figure
in the form of Chiasma,
which coincides with
the Central Point
of the Gear of the Two Circles.
 In the Mirror of the Soul. The Soul, mobile, invades and animates
the Cosmos. She is around him at the same time and communicates,
in Universal Sympathy, with each of the other Souls, in a network
of multiple correspondences. Universal Mediator, she is
in the Center of the World whose different planes she refracts,
making them connect in an infinity of degrees.
At the same time Center and Sphere of which each point is Center, in
the Image of God, the Soul is refracted to Infinity,
becoming both contained and containing.
Absorbing the Unity of the Cosmos and unfolding it
in its infinite diversity, the Soul is a Mirror
in which the World is Reflected.
 Marsilio Ficino in particular Book III. “De Vita Coelirus
Comparanda”, he defines the relationships between Soul, Spirit
and Celestial Influences, endeavoring to imagine the appropriate
Receptacles to capture them. “Purification Techniques capable of
making our Mind conform to that of the World, become Celestial”,
inspiration of the Natural Magic of the Magi of the Renaissance
 Such is, for the Neoplatonists of the Renaissance,
Followers of Ficino, the Sense of Unity that governs Concordia
Mundi: “It is reflected in the Refraction from one to another
of the different planes of this Living Unity that is the Cosmos,
or vice versa. Individual Element is the Synthesis of All Others”.
 It is like an endless game of Mirrors, a succession of images
and shadows of images: the top, the perfect forms of the Ideas,
here below, the weakening of the influx. One and the other
are only “formal” translations of a unique phenomenon,
the living palpitation of the Universe; these are different signs
of this unique living reality which, conversely,
is nothing other than this same Infinite Refraction of Life.
 This Mirror of the Soul,
“Infinite Refraction of Life”,
the Garden offers
to the contemplation
of the ideal visitor who,
from his elevated point of view,
scrutinizes
the Engraving of Dupérac:
the Central Axis reflects
the Cosmic Emblem
of the Egg-Sun
of the Fountain of Leda
in the Cross of the Garden
of the Simples or Secret.
 The Orphic and Solar Egg, figure of the Intellect, contains,
like a Seed in the Worlds, Ideas, a “Fundamental Reason”
our Platonists would say, the figure of Chi. The image of the Cross,
a sensitive printed form in the World of Bodies, is transmitted
to him by the Soul of the World at the level of the Source of
the Dragons, which in turn hides the Seal of the Chiasm Footprint.
 From the Intellect,
the Fountain of Leda,
to the Soul of the World,
the Fountain of the Dragons,
and to the Bodies,
the Garden of the Simple,
the Perfect Form of the Idea
is refracted here below:
the initial influx
of The Almighty figure
of the Chiasm it was diluted
in that of the Cross,
the Christic Cross of
the Incarnation of the Divine.
 Also, the Cross of Man, placed in the Center of the World
as the Renaissance Artists are pleased to represent it,
the arms extended in a horizontal line that intersects the vertical line
formed by the trunk and the head, the Heart beats
in unison from the Heart of the Stars, the Sun.
 In “an endless game of mirrors”,
the Central Axis of the Garden
illustrates the intimate relationships
between
the Intelligible and Sensible Worlds
by communicating the Ideas,
the “Seminal Reasons”,
and the Bodies, the “species” model
of the “fundamental reasons”
in Matter, using intelligible images
and sensitive image shadows.
Images and shadows of images irrigate reality through the Mirror
of the Soul: they receive from the Intelligible World to refract them
in the Sensible World and, reciprocally, they are afraid of making
them rise towards the intelligible in a conversion movement.
 The Mirror can restore
the Rational Part of the Soul,
its Divine Dimension
and thus bring it back
to the bliss of permanence
and rest,
of the Eternity
from which it came.
 According to Plotinus:
Everything is the Image,
contained in Matter,
of a Principle of Reason,
in itself, being in turn
the Image of a pre-material
Principle of Reason:
thus, each particular entity
is linked to this Divine Being.
in whose image
it was created.
 The Ideas of the Intellect are reflected in “images” or forms
that the Soul of the World welcomes to reflect them in turn
in “image shadows” that give their imprint to the material forms.
The Soul, by its mediating position, is this Divine Mirror which
refers to the World, the World of the Intelligible and the World
of the Sensible, the World of Images between the Earth and the Sky,
in suspense, a Mediating Space that makes the Body
and the Spirit communicate with the help of the Imagination.
 From Mirror to Mirror,
the World sends
the Divine Light to the Bodies
to animate them.
On the contrary,
Souls immersed in Matter,
after being Purified through
Knowledge and Imagination,
will Transform
into Souls of Light
and return to their Origin.
 The “World of the Soul”,
between the Intellect
and the Body, is that
of Imagination and Images:
rational images and sensitive
images, “shadows of images”
that, “at the level of the Soul”,
communicate
in an infinite circularity founded
in a “System of Forwarding”,
from Sign to Sign,
according to a combination
of which the Art of Memory
has offered Neoplatonic
speculation powerful tools
capable of mastering
complexity.
 Dedicated to Rhetoric,
the Art of Memory,
in Antiquity
and in the Middle Ages,
it was organized according
to a combination that offered
the Spirit the opportunity
to navigate the complexity
of discourse more easily.
This Art proposed
for its implementation
“Places and Images” that were
presented in the manner
of a building to go
through mentally to retain
the key images, Shocking,
that guided the Speaker
in his speech.
 During the Renaissance this combination was not used
for a mnemonic purpose, useful to speech, but to reflect the Hidden
Reality of the World, to elaborate a complex representation, where
“Places and Images” of the Tradition of the Ars Memorativa
began to have signs, emblems, stamps and symbols that,
in a dizzying circularity, returned their meanings.
 In the hands of a
Hermetic Neoplatonist
like Giulio Camillo,
who made extensive
use of it in his Idea
of the Theater,
published in 1544,
this Art became
a powerful
instrument dedicated
to the Manipulation of images and shadows of images, considered
Reflections of the Hidden Powers that give them Life and inhabit,
Celestial Powers that it was intended to reveal
by returning their aura of divine and living images
transmitted by the Soul of the World.
 Giulio Camillo's
Theater of Memory
was a formidable Combinatorial
Machine capable of absorbing
the Powers of the World,
thanks to the Hermetic and
Magical character of its images.
Skillfully manufactured,
signs and symbols had to collect
the Spiritual Power
refracted by the Divine
and Celestial Images
that they represented.
 The object of this Machine
was to Transmit
to the Imagination
of the Spectator,
having adopted a just hermetic
mental posture,
the Celestial Powers that,
opportunely came
to be reflected in this Mirror,
Reflection
of the Soul of the World,
when chained
in an Encyclopedic Knowledge
that unfolds
its imperious Circularity.
 The Art of Memory, which was
practiced by Giulio Camillo
in his “Theater”, lives “its Places
and its Images” transformed
into “Theater of the World”,
a reflection of the Hidden
Reality of the Cosmos.
This Theater, Artificial
and Mental, in a specular way,
communicates the imagination
and ideas, the “exemplary
reasons” of the sensible and
the “seminal reasons”
coming from the Intelligible,
transforming the Encyclopedic
Knowledge into
a Knowledge metamorphosed
by the “divine combinatorics”
 Magical, this Spectacle
had to Transfigure
the Mind of the Spectator,
because, seizing her Soul,
it was going to Raise it from
the Darkness to the Light,
to allow it to apprehend
the Shadows
of the Eternal Ideas
Revealed with the help
of Signs and Symbols.
 Then the Ideas, which, like
stamps printed on the images,
allowed to go up through
the Divine Chain,
passing from the shadows
of the images to the images
and to the original Ideas
or Forms.
This Elevation was considered
a Purification because
it dissipated appearances and,
finally, he gave access
to the Contemplation
of Ideas in his Luminous Aura.
 This Theater assumed,
in its combinatorics,
a Unit of Knowledge equal
to the Unity of the World,
being Theater and World,
only the two faces of the same
reality trapped with the help
of unitary symbols,
whose ultimate goal is Light.
Light, which,
as in Giordano Bruno,
by its Refraction
from one World to another,
Unites the Universe,
from the One to the Intellect,
the Soul and the Body.
 A single Light
illuminates the Whole
and a single Life gives it Life.
For those who rise higher,
it will be visible not only
the Unique Life of Everything,
the Only Light that is in turn,
the only Goodness
and that all the senses
are one sense and that all Ideas
are One Idea,
but also that all Things,
like the Idea,
the Meaning, the Light, the Life,
are a single Essence,
a single Virtue,
a single Operation.
 This Hymn of Bruno,
which beautifully expresses
the continuity of the Platonic
Fascination regarding Light,
we could make it our own,
to evoke the Luminous Power
of the Water Artifices
of the Villa d'Este.
These Artifices,
behind their infinite Games
reveal to us the Power
of the Spirit,
of Ficino's Spiritus Mundi,
captured in the Liquid Crystal.
 In the complexity of its combinatorics, in the very Body of its
appearance as an Amphitheater that requires an ideal Spectator who
looks not at the scaenae frons of the Theater but at the Stands, an
image more suitable to represent the Cosmic Scale,
the Garden is a “Theater of the World”.
As in that of Giulio Camillo, Fountain of Leda
All Signs communicate there
in a Circularity
of Knowledge that is
a Reflection, Mirror
of the Soul and the World,
of the Soul of the World
and of God, whose “Vicar”,
according to Ficino's
expression, is the Sun,
Visible Face of the Invisible
and Hidden God, who has
his Throne in this
Fountain of Leda that
dominates the Garden,
with the help of this Allegory
at the same time Egg,
Sun and Eye of the Sun.
 This Eye looks at the World, in the Mirror of the Garden
that welcomes it, thus the Eye of the Spectator also immerses itself
in this Mirror, thus contemplating, in the same Mirror, the World
and its Principle, the Sun. The Garden welcomes the World under
the Fires of a Double Look, that of its Principle and that
of its ideal Spectator, also situated in the Center of the Universe.
 In the
Diaphaneity
of its Water
Artifices
that rejoice
in myriad
droplets
transformed
into a Mirror, the
Garden Rises
under the crossed
fires of these
gazes, a Mirror image of the World, of Man and of the Divine
Principle that communicate in this median plane, and in doing
so Live, between Earth and Heaven, in a Pure Space, in the manner
of the Soul of the World, in a World of Images, the Signs that pass
through it coming from the Sensible World
or the Intelligible World reverberate.
 Thus, suspended
between Earth and Heaven,
in the vaporous corporeality
of its Water Artifices,
the Garden has become
a Pure Mirror, it lives only
in and for the images
that constantly run through it.
And the Spectator,
from his privileged position,
capturing at a single glance
these images
that reflect the Soul,
the World and the Divine,
can capture all the contents
of the Universes
that they transmit.
In a vertiginous “cathodic”,
(Optics that studies
the Reflection of Light)
that offers
the World in the gaze,
in the sequence of its inverse
wheels commanded
by the Same and the Other,
the Union and the Division,
Love and Hate,
Figures of the World
that turns on itself,
a Universe that gives Light
to its Birth,
that becomes Love
dragged by the Circularity
that drives it.
 To look with the Eyes of the Soul, Contemplate the Garden,
is to see the World as in a Dream, with the Eyes of the Soul,
apprehending it in the Images, in the Reflections that slide over its
resplendent surface, carried by the flow of its Waters in Movement.
These Images initiate us in the Mystery of the “Procession”
and of the “Conversion” of the Spirit in the World,
a Mighty Orb around which they gravitate.
 Like the stamps, signs and symbols of Giulio Camillo's “Theater
of Memory”, these Images, constructed with care, are intended
to capture the Soul of the World, reflecting the influences that pass
through it to lead them towards objects, with the objective
of to “encourage” them, to give them Life. In the Mirror,
this Life gives its possessors the Blessings of the Celestial Powers
and of the Spirit that animates them.
 From the Position of Sirius, it captures at a single glance
the Circularity of it, reflects the Knowledge and appropriates the
Hidden Dynamics of the Universe. By purging the Spirit from him,
by collecting the Celestial Spirit in the reflection of a Clear Water,
she participates in the Movements of the Life of the World,
pleasing a Mental Activity that Elevates this Spiritual Magic.
 Capturing
an Image of the Soul,
absorbing
the Spirit of the World,
obtaining
the Benefits of the Stellar
and Astral Influences,
particularly the Sun,
with the help
of an Image of the Universe,
such is the Object
of this Powerful
Mirror of the Soul.
 The Allegories of the Garden, the Artifices of Water imprison
in the Sparkling Crystal of their Myriads of glittering Droplets,
part of the Spirit of the World, of the Ethereal Quintessence,
which in its Virtue has “very little of an earthly nature, more of a
watery nature, still more aerial, and much fierier and more stellar”
 Mirror of the Soul, a reflection of “the Circularity of Knowledge
in God”, the Garden absorbs the Vital Spirit and directs it towards
that “Registering Surface” that represents the Garden
of the Simples that, with its particularly appropriate Astrological
Allegories, registers in Mirror, in the Microcosm
in which they appear, the Powers and Influences of the Macrocosm.
 The Orbs of Knowledge and Initiation activate the Talisman
of the Garden that animates and manipulates the Images spreading
the Spiritus Mundi that provides the Natural Benefits
of the Celestial Influences in the Body, in the Soul and in the
Spirit of its User, making it Celestial, is say, Divine and Eternal.
 To travel this Garden
is to Throw your Soul
to the Reunion
of the Soul of the World
that inhabits it in reflection
and Unites itself to all Things,
just as the Soul is complete
everywhere at the same time,
it is to dialogue
with the Powers of the World,
Sensitive and Intelligible,
and Project your Spirit
towards the Stars
to capture
the Benefits in Eternity.
 Bibliography
- Gérard Desnoyers “La Villa d´Este a Tivoli”
ou “Le Songe d´Hippolyte”, Paris 2002

Translator : I.·. P.·. H.·. Emilio Ruiz Figuerola, 33°