Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

suffered the failure of the missed appointment, wants todiscover what happened, where the error lay. Since he is also agood astronomer, he slaps himself on the brow and says, ¡¥What anidiot I was!' He starts studying the Gregorian reform, after heobtains an appanage from Elizabeth, to see how to rectify themistake. But he realizes it's too late. He doesn't know whom to getin touch with in France. He has contacts, however, in theMittel-europaische area. The Prague of Rudolf II is one bigalchemist laboratory; so Dee goes to Prague and meets Khunrath, theauthor of Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae, whose allegoricalplates later influenced both Andreae and the Rosicrucianmanifestoes. What sort of relationships does Dee establish? I don'tknow. Shattered by remorse at having committed an irreparableerror, he dies in 1608. Not to worry, though, because in Londonsomeone else is at work¡Xa man who, everybody now agrees, was aRosicrucian and who spoke of the Rosicrucians in his New Atlantis.I mean Francis Bacon."

"Did Bacon really talkabout them?" Belbo asked.

"Strictly speaking, no,but a certain John Heydon rewrote the New Atlantis under the titleThe Holy Land, and he put the Rosicrucians in it. But for us thatmakes no difference. Bacon didn't mention them by name for obviousreasons of discretion, but it's as if he did."

"And a pox ondoubters."

"Right. It's because ofBacon that attempts are made to strengthen relations between theEnglish and German circles. In 1613 Elizabeth, daughter of James I,now reigning, marries Frederick V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine.After the death of Rudolf II, Prague is no longer the ideallocation; Heidelberg is. The wedding of the elector and theprincess is a triumph of Templar allegories. In the course of theLondon festivities, Bacon himself is the impresario, and anallegory of mystical knighthood is performed, with an appearance ofthe knights on the top of a hill. It is obvious that Bacon is nowDee's successor, grand master of the English Templargroup..."

"And since he is clearlythe author of the plays of Shakespeare, we should also reread thecomplete works of the bard, which certainly talk about nothing elsebut the Plan," Belbo said. "Saint John's Eve, a midsummer night'sdream."

"June 23 is notmidsummer."

"Poetic license. Iwonder why everybody overlooked these clues, these clearindications. It's all so unbearably obvious."

"We've been led astrayby rationalist thought," Diotallevi said. "I keep tellingyou."

"Let Casaubon go on; itseems to me he's done an excellent job."

"Not much more to say.After the London festivities, the festivities begin in Heidelberg,where Salomon de Caus has built for the elector the hanging gardensof which we saw a dim reflection that night in Piedmont, as you'llrecall. And in the course of these festivities, an allegoricalfloat appears, celebrating the bridegroom as Jason, and from thetwo masts of the ship recreated on the float hang the symbols ofthe Golden Fleece and the Garter. I hope you haven't forgotten thatthe Golden Fleece and the Garter are also found on the columns ofTomar...Everything fits. In the space of a year, the Rosicrucianmanifestoes come out: the appeal that the English Templars, withthe help of their German friends, are making to all Europe, toreunite the lines of the interrupted Plan." "But what exactly arethey after?"

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Nos inuisibles pretendussont (a ce que Ton dit) au nombre de 36, separez en sixbandes.

¡XEffroyables pactionsfaictes entre le diable & les pretendus Inuisibles, Paris,1623, p. 6

"Maybe the manifestoeshave a double purpose: to send an appeal to the French, and at thesame time to collect the scattered pieces of the German group inthe aftermath of the Lutheran Reformation. Germany, in fact, iswhere the biggest mess occurs. From the appearance of themanifestoes until about 1621, the Rosicrucians receive too manyreplies..."

I mentioned a few of thecountless pamphlets that had appeared on the subject, the ones thathad entertained me that night in Salvador with Amparo. "Possiblyamong all these there is one person who knows something, but he islost in a sea of fanatics, enthusiasts, who take the manifestoesliterally, perhaps also provocateurs, who want to block theoperation, and impostors...The English try to take part in thedebate, to channel it. It's no accident that Robert Fludd, anotherEnglish Templar, in the space of a single year writes three worksthat point to the correct interpretation of the manifestoes...Butthe response is by now out of control, the Thirty Years' War hasbegun, the Elector Palatine has been defeated by the Spanish, thePalatinate and Heidelberg are sacked, Bohemia is in flames...TheEnglish decide to return to France and try there. This is why in1623 the Rosicrucians appear in Paris, giving the French more orless the same invitation they gave the Germans. And what do youread in one of the libels against the Rosicrucians in Paris,written by someone who distrusts them or wants to confuse things?That they are worshipers of the Devil, obviously, but since even inslander you can't entirely erase the truth, it is hinted that theyhold their meetings in the Marais."

"So?"

"Don't you know Paris?The Marais is the quarter of the Temple and, it so happens, theJewish ghetto! What's more, the libel says that the Rosicruciansare in contact with a sect of Iberian cabalists, the Alumbrados!But maybe the pamphlets against the Rosicrucians, under the guiseof attacking the thirty-six invisibles, are actually trying tofoster their identification...Gabriel Naude, Richelieu's librarian,writes some Instructions a la France sur la verite de I'histoiredes Freres de la Rose-Crouc.What do these instructions say? IsNaude" a spokesman for the Templars of the third group, or is he anadventurer barging into a game that isn't his? On the one hand, hedismisses the Rosicrucians as lunatic diabolists; on the other, heinsinuates that there are still three Rosicrucian colleges inexistence. And this would be true: after the third group, there arestill three more. Naude gives some almost fairy-tale hints (onecollege is in India, on the floating islands), but he also saysthat one of them is in the underground of Paris."

"And this explains theThirty Years' War?" Belbo asked.

"Beyond any doubt," Isaid. "Richelieu receives privileged information from Naude; hewants to have a finger in this pie, but he gets it all wrong, triesarmed intervention, and makes matters even worse. There are twoother events that shouldn't be overlooked. In 1619 a chapter of theKnights of Christ