Paralyzed Paracelsus

Below is a photograph I took through wet iron railings of the Porta Magica in Rome's Piazza Vittorio, all that remains of a villa once inhabited by Massimo Palomara da Pietraforte, an alchemist and practising Arcadian poet of the seventeenth century. Apparently the formula for transmuting base metal into gold is engraved around the doorway, a complicated recipe that involves blending lead, tin, bronze, mercury, antinomy and vitriol. There is also a great deal of inscrutable advice: Quando In Tua Domo Nigri Corvi Parturient Albas Columbas Tunc Vocaberis Sapiens, which supposedly means "When black ravens give birth to white doves in your house, then you will be called wise." Meanwhile, the two vaguely Karl Malden-ish figures who stand sentry seem equally disinterested in whether you answered friend, foe or F-off to their diminutive challenge. Some use they would be, guarding the Philosopher's Stone.

Personally I have always considered alchemy to be an extremely tedious topic. One cannot help conjuring mental images of some wizened maniac setting his ludicrously long beard alight by desperately peering just a little too closely into his burning pestle. And the whole upside down hermaphrodite thing has never appealed to me either.

Comments

[fruit of the womb]

looks to me like the statues are contemplating a formula to turn nakedness into underwear. poor doglike creatures staring forever at that lamppost unrelieved,..

[Fcb]

The transmutation of base metal into gold is just a test of the stone, a way to make sure it's coming along nicely.

Clearly he failed; or that tomb is empty.

[stephenesque]

At first glance I thought they were ape-like creatures. But no, they really are Karl Malden types.