Porta Alchemica - Roma, Italy
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denben
N 41° 53.728 E 012° 30.214
33T E 292906 N 4641183
Porta Alchemica, also known as the magic door, is located next to the Nymphaeum of Alexander in the northern corner of Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II in the Rione Esquilino in Rome.
Waymark Code: WM110ER
Location: Lazio, Italy
Date Posted: 07/23/2019
Views: 1
While this “magic door” is famous to Romans, it is barely noticed by tourists visiting Rome. It is the only one of five former doors of the villa Palombara that remains in Piazza Vittorio, a portal into the real and secretive world of 1600s alchemy.
Full of symbols and inscriptions, it was built during the early 1600s by the Roman marquis Massimiliano Palombara, a member of a group of people known as “The Alchemists of Palazzo Riario” who congregated around the Roman court of Christina, the Queen Regent of Sweden. Christina was an ardent supporter of alchemy and science, and thinkers and science luminaries like Rene Descartes and Athanasius Kircher were often found in her Italian court along with alchemy enthusiasts like Palombara.
According to legend, the Marquis met an alchemist at a dinner party who told him he could use a certain herb to turn metals to gold. In the morning the alchemist (said to be Giuseppe Francesco Borri, a sort of alchemical Zelig) was gone but had left behind some gold flakes, evidence apparently of his successful transformations, and an indecipherable sheet, the “recipe” for the transformation. Because the Marquis was unable to read it he inscribed the recipe on his doors in the hope that someone who could understand it would see it and come knocking.
The standing figures on both sides of the door feature deformed creatures, with short, stout legs and a grotesque bearded face representing a true Egyptian divinity or semi-divinity, called Bes. A patron of the home, childbirth and infants in ancient Egypt, Bes was also known in imperial Rome, where in pre-Christian age several people followed Egyptian cults.
The two statues were found somewhere near the Quirinal Hill, where in ancient times stood a large temple dedicated to the Egyptian gods Isis and Serapis. During the works for the opening of piazza Vittorio, in 1888, these statues were moved from their original location to the Porta Alchemica.
Mystery and occult beliefs still surround the door, and a cryptic symbol above the doorway fuels many of these theories. But of course, to most visitors to Rome, it’s just another mysterious ruin.
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