ESOTERICISM AND THE HERMETIC TRADITION IN ROME

Secrets, symbols and hidden knowledge in the Urbs

In 1463 Cosimo de' Medici urgently commissioned the translation of a Greek manuscript just arrived from Macedonia — the Corpus Hermeticum, attributed to the ancient Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus — before even commissioning Plato. From that moment the idea of a universal and secret wisdom, accessible only to the initiated, began to circulate among philosophers, cardinals and artists across Europe. Rome was the principal stage of this story. This itinerary in six stops takes the visitor through the places where that story has left visible traces — not in books, but in the stones and painted vaults of the city. From the sanctuary of Isis buried beneath the Pantheon to the Magic Door of Piazza Vittorio, passing through the Kabbalistic library of a Renaissance cardinal, the astrological ceiling of Villa Farnesina, the burning of Giordano Bruno in Campo de' Fiori and the Jesuit optical illusions of the Baroque. Rome, read in counterlight, is another city.