Durer's Nativity

[ariston]

It's been too long! Charlotte, Don, doing well I hope, I have been much encumbered and doing none too well, but I will prevail somehow.

Gnosticism is the mother of Freemasonry! Could this be regarded as Proto-masonic, such as it is. This engraving measures no more than 25cm on either side, therefore it does not offer much scope as far as flexibility goes with regard to angular direction, which makes me conclude that ole Albrecht implemented the schematic with purpose.

Proto-Masonic indeed, or an extension of the Mysterion with regard to Capstone analogies and certain utterances in the PT'S, although not exclusively, being an amalgam of Hebraic and Hellenic also. One point in Genesis for the NT being the Nile Delta region, that eclectic metropolis known as Alexandria being a possible location. Essentially the extension of the dying and resurrecting Godman who can be found in Tammus/Attis/Osiris/Dionysus/Bel-Marduk. Although there seems to be no Resurrection in the O/t, but the adaptation from the first manifestation of the Messiah figure, hebrew Moshiach, being Moses to his Heir Joshua Ben Nun, literally Joshua, cognate with Salvation, the deliverer into the biblical land of Milk and Honey, via the obliteration of Jericho. Not so much in the way of Humanism there as in the n/t and the message of love and Tolerance! Expressionism that has a precursor in the writings of the classical Hellenic philosopher's, hence the Logos. Mystery being a Key word, not a literalistic interpretation but reading between the lines, plays on words and parables. History, I fear not, historical references for context, granted.

Similarly the same symbolism can be found within the veiled geometry of the West face of Exeter Cathedral, just to pick the next readily available image, among many.

Why go to such an effort regarding the veiled symbolism! If a system of belief is watertight, why goto such an effort to create puncture's, so the inferences are clear to me, just as Wren pastes a huge Phoenix on the southern Portico of St Pauls with the word Resurgam underneath it, but then is that particular creature consistent with Literalism. Where does it emanate from? Why would Wren do that. The Mansion of the Phoenix, is that what he is suggesting. Ah, but nigh on 1600 hundred years of the primacy and evolution of ecclisiastical philosophy based around literalism, with the inquisition on yer tail would make the most ardent adherent of Gnosticism and Mysticism quake!

If literalism is the province of Exclusivity, why are so many edifices/ works of art portraying veiled instances of symbolism reserved for exclusively non-christian belief systems. Good Question?

Just as the Gematria goes, being the province of late 3rd C Gnosticism;

katabo/\h Ihsoys=1320
Osiris=1320

Katabo/\h Osiris=1760
H A/\htheia Kypios Ihsoys=1760

BestRegardsall
L

[ariston]

Similarly, The same symbolism can be found via Botticelli;

www.aiwaz.net/mystical-revelation-by-botticelli/a117

L

[Charlotte]

Greetings Latona,

Yes, it has been too long and we are delighted to see you and your inspiring work again. It seems that for the moment Don has lost interest in Geometry.

The belief system of literalism is only watertight for the Mind which thinks and understands exclusivly rational, deeming the mystical for the credulous, and abstract for imagined and confusing because abstruce.

Considering his Life, Associations, and Works both in the Old and New World, surely one is not far of the mark to place the ingenious Christopher Wren among the Luminaries of his time, 16 to -17 century, therefore a Mystic, and also a Mason. We delighted in speaking of these times. So the veiled symbolism is for the mystically minded, to instruct the soul by geometric architecture, and for generations of both kind.

I don't think the real meaning and properties of Pheonix is consistent with Literalism as it is a mythical Bird, though many parallels in a life-time can be drawn. Literalism can't be the providence of Exclusivity for the Mystic has easy access to it, whereas the Literalist has not or very little acces to Mysticism.

This is how I explain it to myself.

Yours truly

Charlotte

[Don Barone]

... Don has lost interest in Geometry. ...

Not entirely true but it no longer is the place I will find my answers I now know. However things are still hidden in paintings and the code could be geometric but I am going for a much larger prize. In order to understand the "reality" that I now see one has to totally throw out everything we hold true and valid. I am attempting to explain it on my newest website The Game of Life. In this "theory" everything we see is an illusion. But an illusion so powerful it takes the form of reality and because of the power of the forces creating it, ... our "soul", it takes the form of actual substance, or so it seems. In my reality the past never happened, no dinosaurs ruled the world, no wars were fought, no deaths grieved, NO LIVES LOST and most importantly no rules broken and no "fruit eaten" !

Ridiculous? Maybe not.

When I was playing hockey in 1982 I dislocated my shoulder and the pain was intense and after they finally got me into the dressing room the pain became unbearable. I looked up at my wife and said, " I think I am going to pass out" and pass out I did. so what does any of this have to do with 'that". Well it was during this time of "unconsciousness" that I RE-LIVED MY ENTIRE LIFE and right up to where I had been squeezing a tennis ball to strengthen my wrists. My wife thought I was convulsing but I later explained what I was doing for the whole episodes remained crystal clear in my memory then and now. But that is only half the story. For the re-living continued for a maybe split second, maybe a bit more, after I woke up and one of the most amazing things occurred. The pain did not return until I had actually re-lived the part where I had dislocated my shoulder. This should not have occurred. And you are free to quote me all the studies on why "they" think it occurred but the bottom line is that until I remembered where I was in the game ... I WAS NOT IN IT !!!!!!! And therefore I was not subject to the rules of pain and such.

So we are living out a virtual reality for whatever reasons, not sure why. Maybe being Gods we need something amazingly complicated to entertain ourselves, I am not sure just yet.

And now back to The Pyramids. In my reality I HAVE BUILT THEM to peak my interest at a certain time and place in my existence and that is perhaps why I am finding what I want to find. Maybe it is because I PUT IT THERE.

So as you can see I no longer have any doubts whatsoever that the geometry is there so it no longer needs to be studied by myself. It is one of many mementos "I" or "We" have "left to be discovered and deciphered" to help us figure out where and who and what "we" are. The watching of the movie "Memento" (the movie is graphic in places) might make the concept a bit clearer.

Absurd ?

Perhaps but how much sense does it make that we are here, think, breath and ponder on why we are here ?

Regards
Don Barone

[ariston]

Don, Charlotte,

Through Geometry and such you have already found so much, pioneering too, and so to answers have been found, it's a case of milling through the right ones. But then the geometric is the province of the material and will only reveal kernels rather than the whole, but never say never as your works provide streams of inspiration.

And following on, The Phoenix being a Mythical Bird not being consistent with Literalism is exactly my point, obviously the theme of Resurgo resonates, so is it specifically recognition of the rebirthing process, this is why Wren puts it on the Southern portico, recalling the same theme in Wolfram and of Mt Salvation centuries earlier. A recurring theme amongst the luminaries of the 16th and 17th C and in this one has to look to the Heliopolitan. For me there is a fine line between literalism and Mythology, The Phoenix is no less real than the Archangel Gabriel.

Heinrich Khunrath expresses the same in Philosophical content;

Bset to you both
L

[Charlotte]

Greetings Latona,

The death and rebirth of the Arabian Phoenix is probably best known, many people are fascinated by the story as it touches a mystery within themselves, perhaps. I have a porcelan plate on which is painted a beautiful Russian Fire Bird.

The Phoenix bird, dost thou not know him?
The Bird of Paradise,
the holy swan of song!
On the car of Thespis he sat in the guise of a chattering raven,
and flapped his black wings,
smeared with the lees of wine,
over the sounding harp of Iceland
swept the swans red beak;
on Shakespeare's shoulder he sat
in the guise of Odin's raven,
and whispered in the poet's ear
"Immortality!"
and at the minstrels' feast he fluttered through the halls of Wartburg.

Charlotte

[Charlotte]

Hallo Don,

It seems you lost interest in geometry for "the moment", I wrote, so I'm glad you did not altogether.

The rest of your post is difficult to follow, but then as with me so many times when re-reading my posts, it seems that only I understand what I'm trying to convey.

Love

Charlotte

[ariston]

Greetings Charlotte,

The Ansons seem to be under no illusion re the symbolism;

Recalling the forebear of Shugborough being Esme Stuart and of his sister Gabrielle.

BestRegards
Latona

[Charlotte]

Greetings Latona,

Yes, I do recall the Stewards of Lennox, the Champernon's, Cornwallis', the Ansons and Shugborough, especially the latter I wanted to sift through, alas....

Re-regarding

Charlotte

[Charlotte]

Dürer

During my last vacation I also had time to read "The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age" by Frances Yates. In chapter 6, the erudite Lady writes on Melancholy and Dürer. There is a bridge from the Saints and things we speak of in "Secrets of the Universe" to the Elizabethan Age, as touched upon with the Tempest, building a bridge to America, Sir Francis Bacon being the Godfather of the Founding Fathers, and then to us here writing about it.

"The famous German artist, Albrecht Dürer, was born in 1471 and died in 1528. He was a contemporary of Erasmus, Luther, and Agrippa.

Always a deeply religious man, Dürer's spiritual power was early shown in the remarkable Apocalypse illustrations. After his second visit to Italy (1505-7) his style changed, for he had absorbed the Italian art theory based on harmony of macrocosm and microcosm, understood in subtle geometrical terms, on the cosmos, as laid down by the Architect of the Universe. Dürer became the chief northern exponent of this theory, in which proportion is a link between man and the universe, expressed through proportion in architecture as laid down by Vitruvius, and all the arts. It is the foundation of beauty, of aesthetic satisfaction. In this theory, geometry was the primary mathematical science, on which beauty in architecture, painting, geometry, music, must be based. With his intense vision, Dürer penetrated to the religious core of this theory; with his brilliant mind he seized its mathematical basis; with his artist's hand he executed designs of profound religious meaning with faultless geometrical precision. Dürer saw art as power, and the root of aesthetic power was number.

"Dürer's "Melencolia I (1514), is based on a passage in Agrippa's De occulta philosophia". Agrippa "determined to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ". Agrippa in turn was influenced by the Abbot Trithemius and Albertus Magnus, and as noted, studied the Epistles of Saint Paul with Colet in London. Among "certain men" who "clave unto" Saint Paul, (Acts 17.34)was Dionysios the Areopagite, whose Celestial Hierarchy "strongly influenced" Luminaries of the Renaissance, in particular the Friar of Venece, Francesco Giorgy, who "wished to be the carrier of the wisdom capable of including Hermes Trismegistus, Orpheus, Francis of Assisi, Plato and the Cabalists, Plotinus and Augustine, in the common understanding of the arcana mundi and of the spiritual destiny of man in the return to the inaccessible One,"

These are but few Men of Light of the Renaissance, devoting their lives to the study of the spiritual destiny of Man to return to God, espousing the sole purpose of the Orthodox Church. In communication with one another, their Church, built on the teachings of Saints, in the main was greater Florence, Germany, and England.

To be continued when time allows.

Charlotte

[Charlotte]

The Genius of Dürer, and two schools of thought on his engraving Melencolia I (1514).

Frances Yates writes:

"The interpretation of this engraving as a representation of 'inspired melancholy' was first put forward in a study in German by Panofsky and Saxi(l) published in 1923. It was again discussed by Panofsky in his book on Dürer in 1945. It is fully expounded in the work Saturn and Melancholy by Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl published in 1964 which is a mine of detailed information and rich scholarship about the humours of their representation in art. Through Klibansky's learned discussion of the four humours in ancient and medieval psychology; through Saxl's survey of the pictorial types of the humours; through Panofsky's analysis of the engraving in terms of Renaissance iconography, a view of Dürer's Melencholia I was built up in which all these strands were used for the interpretation of the extraordinary, dark-faced, figure, absorbed in profound meditation, and surrounded by a strange medley of objects.

"According to the Gelenic psychology, dominent through the Middle Ages, the four humours or temperaments into which all men could be classified were the sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholic. Sanguine people were active, hopeful, successful, outward-looking; they made good rulers and men of affairs. Choleric people were irritable, inclined to fighting. Phlegmatic people were tranquil, somewhat lethargic. Melencholiy people were sad, poor, unsuccessful, condemned to the most servile and despised occupations.

"The theory locked man's psychology into the cosmos, for the four humours correspond to the four elements and four planets, as follows:

Sanguine - Air - Jupiter
Choleric - Fire - Mars
Phlegmatic - Water - Moon
Melancholy - Earth - Saturn

"The theory was bound up with astrology. If Saturn dominated in the horoscope, the person concerned would be inclined to be melencholy; if Jupiter, the outlook would be more hopeful, and so on.
The most unfortunate and the most hateful of all the four humours was Saturn—Melancholy. The meancholic was dark in
complexion, with black hair and black face - the facies nigra or livid hue induced by the black bile of the melencholy complexion. His typical physical pose, expressive of his sadness and depression, was to rest his head on his hand. Even his 'gifts', or characteristic occupations, were not attractive. He was good at measuring, numbering, counting - at measuring land and counting money - but what low and earthy occupation were these compared with the splendid gifts of the sanguine Jupiter man, or the grace and loveliness of those born under Venus!

"Dürer's Melancholy has the livid hue, the swarthy complexion, the 'black face' of the type, and she supports her pensive head on her hand in the characteristic pose. She holds compasses for measuring and numbering. Beside her is the purse, for counting money. Around her are tools, such as an artisan might use. Obviously she is a melancholic, characterized by the physical type, pose, and occupation of the old, bad, melancholy, but she seems also to express some more lofty and intellectual type of endeavour. She is not actually doing anything, just sitting and thinking. What do those geometrical forms mean, and why does a ladder rise heavenward behind the polyhedron?

"There was a line of thought through which Saturn and the melencholy temperament might be 'revalued', raised from being the lowest of the four to become the highest, the humour of great men, great thinkers, prophets and religious seers. To be
melencholy was a sign of genius; the 'gifts' of saturn, the
numbering and measuring studies attributed to the melencholic,
were to be cultivatedas the highest kind of learning which brought man nearest to the divine. The radical change in the attitude to melencholy had results in affecting a change in the direction of man's mind and studies.

"This change was brought about through the influence of a text the authorship of which was ascribed to Aristotle, but which is more safely described as Pseudo-Aristotelian. The thirtieth of the Problemata physica in this Pseudo-Aristotelian treatise discusses melecholy as the humour of heroes and great man. The argument is very detailed and medical but the main point is that the heroic frenzy, or madness, or furor, which according to Plato is the source of all inspiration, when combined with the black bile of the melencholy temperament produces great men; it is the temperament of genius. All outstanding men have been melencholics, heroes like Hercules, philosophers, like Empedocles, Plato, and practically all poets."

Truly, it is so. Would you believe I wrote all this because of Plato and Poets, and my great Love Francis, when not engaged in affairs of the State, at times melancholic and dreamer Prince of Poets, and Hamlet the mad who prophesied but knew a hawk from a handsaw, and my Father who gave me Dürer's Praying Hands engraved on a small brass ornament.

Charlotte

[Charlotte]

Surely, Melancholy and Love are closely related, for love is an equally great source of inspiration, motivating us to undertake all sorts of thinge we normally would not have energy or zeal for.

Frances Yates further writes on the Zeitgeist of the Renaissance:

"The theories of Pseudo-Aristotle on melancholy were not unknown in the Middle Ages, but in the Renaissance they attracted general attention. Assimilating into Neoplatonism through the Platonic theory of the furores, the notion of the melancholy hero whose genius is akin to madness became familiar to the European mind.

"Ficino knew the Pseudo-Aristolelian theory and mentioned it in the De triplici vita, the work in which he sets forth his astral magic. Addressing students who were thought to suffer from melancholi through solitariness and concentration on their studies, he advised that the Saturnian or melancholic man should not avoid the deep study to which he is prone by temperament but should take care to temper the Saturnian severity with Jovial and Veneral influences. The ingenuity of Klibansky-Saxl-Panofsky has proved that Dürer's engraving shows knowledge of Ficinian theory for they demonstrate that the square on the wall behind the melanchly figure, containing an arrangement of numbers, is a magic square of Jupiter, calculated to draw down Jupiter influence through its numerical arrangement. Thus the severe influence of Saturn and his inspired melancholy is being tempered in the engraving with Jupiter influences, as Ficino advised.

"Dürer's immediate source for the inspired melancholy was, however, not Ficino, but Agrippa's De occulta philosophia. The date of the engraving is 1514, that is nearly twenty years before the publication of the printed version of Agrippa's work in 1533. It is therefore assumed that Dürer must have used the manuscript version of 1510 which was circulated in many copies and was certainly available in the circles in which Dürer mived. In Saturn and Melancholy the passage as it is in the manuscriptversion is translated into English. The following is an abridged quotation from it.

The humor melancholicus, when it takes fire and glows, generates the frency (furor) which leads us to wisdom and revelation., especially when it is combined with a heavenly influence, above all with that of Saturn. . . . Therefore Aristotle says in the Problemata that through melancholy some men have become divine beings, foretelling the future like Sybils. . . . while others have become poets . . . and he says further that all men who have been distinguished in any branch of knowledge have generally been melancholics."

Fern wrote quite a bit about the Sybils and their prophecies, another interesting subject.

Charlotte

[Charlotte]

Since Saint Climacus speaks of the Melancholy of the Soul and Ladder of Divine Ascend, I thought I add a few more words about Dürer.

Albrecht Dürer, notice His Coat of Arms

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer

Melencholia I

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melencolia_I

Saint Jerome

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Jerome_in_His_Study_(D%C3%BCrer)

Don't believe everything you read in the cut and dry articles

Frances Yates disagrees, so do I, with Panofsky's interpretation of Dürer's Melancholia for it "does not take into account the outlook of the 'occult philosophy', with which Dürer must surely be concerned, if he is influenced by Agrippa. As now generally realised, the occult philosophy from Pico onwards and as formulated by Agrippa included the Hermetic and magical thought of Ficinian Neoplatonism, adding to this the Cabalist magic introduced by Pico. The Book Saturn and Melancholy does not deal with either of these two basic categories. Though there is much on Dürer's dept to Ficino's De vita, this work is treated predominantly for its treatment of melancholy and without reference to its general importance as a text for spiritual magic, as defined by D. P. Walker. Walker's discoveries about the Hermetic influence in De vita had not yet been puplished when Panofsky was contributing to Saturn and Melancholy. Hence all that side of the occult philosophy is insufficiently covered.

"I therefore believe that the approach to the Dürer engraving needs to be re-assessed in terms of our new understanding of Renaissance thought on its occult side."

Dürer's Melancholia is "surrounded by Saturnian allusions and Saturnian occupations, she magically invokes the inspiring influence of the highest of the planets, and is protected from harm by the angel of Saturn. Her angelic character is suggested not only by her angel wings but also by the ladder behind her, leading, not to the top of the building but generally upwards into the sky, Jacob's ladder on which the angels ascend and descend.

"Dürer's Melancholy is not in a state of depressed inactivity. She is in an intense visionary trance, a state guaranteed against demonic intervention by angelic guidance. She is not only inspired by Saturn as the powerful star-demon, but also by the angel of Saturn, a spirit with wings like the wings of Time.

"The starved dog", Frances Yates believes, "represents the bodily senses, starved under severe control in the first stage of inspiration, in which the inactivity is not representative of failure but of an intense inner vision. The Saturnian melancholic hs 'taken leave of the senses' and is soaring in worlds beyond worlds in a state of visionary trance. The only sense which is alive and waking is the artist's hand of the putto recording the vision with his engraving tool - the hand of Dürer himself recording his psychology of inspiration in his marvelous engraving.

"In Melancholia I the inspired imagination of the artist is on a lower rung of the ladder of vision than is Jerome in his ordered surroundings. Jerome might be on the third grade of the Agrippan classification of inspired melancholy, in which mens 'learns the secrets of divine matters, as for instance the Law of God, the angelic hierarchy, and that which pertains to the knowledge of eternal things.

"In fact I would suggest that the St Jerome may actually be Melencholia III. At this stage the mens sees into all truth, including the divine truth of geometry, obscurely and confusedly distinguished by imaginatio in Melencholia I."

Not to forget that the "Celestial Hierarchy" of Dionysius the Areopogite was studied at the time, as mentioned earlier. The Neoplatonic and English Renaissance including the great Rosicrucian and Masonic movement, "belonged with the general advance into new fields of learning and experience. Chief being Sir Francis Bacon, toiling with Friends for the advancement of Humanity, the Reformation of the Whole World.

Encountered great opposition from the House of Hapsburg, sanctioned by the Catholic Church, the 'movement' advancing Humanity is alive, and upward on the Ladder of Divine Ascent we climb as the Saints before us. To them belongs the Highest of Wisdom, and to my great Love Francis, the Divine Poet.

Charlotte