Every day is a peculiar day in Alchemy. To Make the difference is the Sun orbiting the Earth: we alchemists still consider the sun as seen from the earth.
In our time, the zodiac term is unquestionably tied with the deviated prediction practices astrology has been downgraded. When applied to Alchemy, it may seem like a series of complicated methods to predict the “right” day when to start a specific operation.
There are “ right” days to start or draw to a close a particular operation. But indeed, not according to planets’ aspects with one another. Or astrological houses and planets in signs, all those pieces of information composing a natal chart, are not used in Alchemy. We cannot cast a horoscope for our First Matter to start putrefaction or perform the last fixation.
This misconception started with mixing Alchemy with iatrochemistry in the medieval age and spagyric in the last two centuries. In Alchemy, the planets of our solar galaxy are just allegories used to indicate the phases of our work. So Saturn is our raw matter and Primitive Black Mercurius and Mercurius and Mercurius Philosophorum ( Saturn does play many roles indeed), Moon is our first whiteness, Venus our second whiteness, Mars and Sun our redness, Jupiter represents the Grey color, and so on… But, as we have at least three meanings for every symbol, planets also stand for types of metal. Not to mention all the operations known as “regimens of fire” (calcination, sublimation, solution, putrefaction, distillation, and tincture). And, last but not least, the Secret Fire density stairs, better known as “ Heavens” or Coeli. Alchemists are not all from the same university. Thank God.
Nevertheless, a twelve zodiacal planetarian signs wheel is on the San Miniato floor, but, back at the beginning of the thirteenth century, it represents the Ecliptic or, in a world dominated by Ptolemaic System, just the apparent Sun path orbiting the Earth. We will see in this site how there was a Moon path and how this astronomical method greatly affected Alchemy.
The zodiac idea originated with Babylonians about 2000 b.c. as a method to measure time flowing. The partition into twelve parts is far later and has been inspired by the number of constellations the Sun goes through, and these constellations gave grounds for zodiac signs. It was not a chance occurrence that was just the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemaeus in II century a.D. to describe the signs as we know them today. In this Zodiacal calendar, Aries corresponds to the vernal equinox, the Cancer stepping back grab represents the Sun retiring from its most northern point, Lion is the major summer heat, Libra stands for day and night balance in the fall equinox, Pisces is the return to life and so on.
Precession of equinoxes does not affect our alchemical or agricultural purposes, as we are not interested to make starting our “magnetizing” phase under Aries but, instead, a week before the vernal equinox, for example. However, we know that the Roseae Crucis may also observe the position of the planets (1), anyway, not in the sense of casting a horoscope as a calendar.
What we call “Asters” is instead used to calculate the rising or setting constellations to establish a calendar (2). Sun, Moon, and Stars are all we need. So when we see a zodiacal wheel, we have to know whether the sun was considered orbiting the earth or the other way. The zodiac wheel on the San Miniato floor represents a calendar.
Back to Alchemy, this is a very simple and logic modus operandi for every alchemist since the greatest of antiquity, with equinoxes and solstices, which are solar aspects. With rising or setting constellations. And Moon phases. The two images below (3) are very ancient, from the end of the nineteenth century and show one of the photographers’ first desires: to take a sun path shoot. There, we can follow the apparent variation of our star from the earth’s frame of reference. We can detect equinoxes and solstices and understand their importance. As well as understand why every day is peculiar; when I say the day, I mean the solar kingdom of daylight. Of course, we have the kingdom of moonlight. Even more critical from an alchemist’s point of view.
We have just made sense of the San Miniato zodiac as a calendar. But was this calendar intended to point to a specific date? I recently read a book about the topic: “ The Secret Zodiac. The Hidden Art in Mediaeval Astrology” by Fred Gettings, published by Routledge and Kegan in London in 1987. On page three, we can read: “ … by a certain amount of inspired guesswork, and by dint of casting a series of horoscopes from the year 1207 ( which year is mentioned in an inscription alongside the zodiac), I was able to show that in this year there was a unique stellar event which was recorded within the symbolism of the zodiac, and the church as a whole. This was a “satellitium in Taurus,” a gathering of planets in the constellation Taurus, reflected in the Taurian symbolism of the zodiac and the basilican church… As if all this were not enough, I could show that the orientation of the zodiac was also linked most significantly with this year of 1207. The axis of Taurus had been directed precisely towards a specific point of sunrise over Florence, a point which, because of certain astrological considerations relating to 1207, may be said to be the anagogic direction of Taurus… it is suggested that if I wish to gain support for my notion that the San Miniato zodiac represents a hermetic foundation chart, linked with annual, diurnal and epochal rhythms, I will have to find something akin to the thirteenth-century horoscope which I claim was used for laying down the zodiac in 1207… the inscription is not very clear. After some initial difficulties, I succeeded in translating this latin, and in so doing, I have discovered to my surprise, that it incorporates a remarkable medieval code. When translated and decoded, this inscription reveals the exact time and date on which the zodiac was laid down and mentions the names of the planets involved in the satellitium in Taurus. The data contained within this coded latin corresponds precisely to the date I had arrived at independently and published in 1978, over nine years ago. It is, of course, the date on which the unique gathering of planets took place, on 28 May 1207… in examing this inscription concerning its encoded message, I naturally paid some attention to the numerological significance of its structure, in the knowledge that this would have played a most important part in any system of code or esoteric structure of the medieval period. The curious form of the inscription arises from the fact that it is a seven-sentence inscription presented in three lines. It is partly this structure and the relationship of the hermetic numbers 7 and 3…”
I cannot but start from the irrationality involved in the author’s decoding practice. It means nothing that the lines are three and the words seven for line ( anyway, it is not valid; you can check from the picture below). I spare you the inscription’s translation because the latin is so fully packed with syntax errors that only a literal conversion could be possible. We are before a usual medieval colorful, and imaginative dedication to a donor (Dante) who made the building possible, “may he live in the same”. Of course, we also have the date after the word “dante”, MCCVII. Exactly 1207. At least a phrase without error. From the bottom of my modest knowledge, I can assure you that alchemists, or hermeticists, did hate literature and any written word. They did not write anything but figurative art. Their stone books were never inscriptions of words or numbers. But figures and symbols. And whenever they played with words’ meanings, it employed riddles and tales. They always expressed themselves in terms of allegories and analogies. Anyway, what eventually they ( I don’t understand why it is always presumed an organization behind) would have hidden in their message? The date of the nave pavement lay down? 1207, it is written. Or better, some formidable event occurred on 28 of May 1207.
The author reveals: “… the axis of Taurus had been directed precisely towards a specific point of sunrise over Florence… ” he talks of a spiritual truth that could be revealed or radiated on spectators with certain rhythms of time. But you can attend at every equinox you want in every place, and it never will happen since rising solar light does not have the power to enlighten more than the inner of a dark basilica if you do not know what to do with it.
When mentioning the importance of Taurus in San Miniato, the author probably intends the bull being strangely detached from the other evangelists’ animal signs. It is not sculptured in the pulpit with an eagle, a man, or a lion (see image at the top of the page). But it could not, and we will see why in the following article. As well as to see why the bull is on its own.
Let’s admit there is a hidden date to point at in the nave pavement calendar; this date is significant. But an essential date for who? What if the San Miniato planner had intended to point at a particularly important event? For the monastery? For the official monastery or the hidden hermetic one? And what could this event have possibly been? Since the date appears to be 28 of May, we may suggest a successful “ Week of the Week” or Hebdomas Hebdomadum (4) which may take place in about these days. Or he would have pointed at the possibility of that week. Or even at an event with something above and beyond the Hebdomas Hebdomadum. In this case, it would be absolutely and positively kept silent. Alchemists are not showing off people.
In this case, this was not a date for all humankind but a “handle with care” date for alchemical use in hidden environments (5).
- See also Friedrick Grick: did Rosicrucians use Ephemerides? ;
- See also Trisulti Carthusian Monastery and the Yearbook Wheel , Santi Pupieni and the Raising Black-New Moon , Thesaurus Hermeticum & Dry Pythagorean River , Nuisement and the Sun Resisting Capture , Voynich Manuscript and the Unknown Part of the Rhythm , Pietro Perugino and the Lady of the Wind ;
- See also Two Stars in a Venetian Geocentric Sky and Voynich Manuscript and the Unknown Part of the Rhythm ;
- Both pictures are taken from Nasa Picture of the Day ;
- See also Canseliet, the Art of Music and Weight ;
- See also Rennes le Chateau, Alchemy & Counter Initiation .