Mythical dimensions and rituals
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Monterozzi necropolis and a journey into the underworld
We could never have known anything about the Etruscans, a people of ancient Italy who lived between the 9th and 1st centuries BC, if they had not given death the same importance as life. In the 7th and 6th centuries BC, when Etruscan civilization reached its military and cultural peak, houses and temples were built…
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The Temple of Clitumnus, sacred center of the Longobards
There are places that, even across the centuries, preserve intact that admirable perception of innate sacredness. A stream of water flowing gracefully in the moonlight on the valley floor; a silent forest of beech and cypress trees, the edge of which declines impetuously along the banks of an ancient spring: the Sources of Campello reveal…
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Archangel Michael, the origins of the cult
A sword stroke resounds in the air; as if driven by tongues of unquenchable fire, it shakes the powers of heaven. The wings of Archangel Michael open mightily, his loose hair is shaken by an imperious quiver. Terrible in his gait, he hurls himself at the enemy with a battle cry: “Mīkā’el, who is like…
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The Sanctuary of St. Michael on Mount Gargano
The monumental St. Michael’s Cave, on the Gargano promontory in northern Apulia, is a holy place since time immemorial. It is the place where the Sublime and the encounter with the divine are manifested. According to tradition, the cave was chosen by Archangel Michael, the commander of the celestial militia, as a house of worship…
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The cult of Isis in Benevento
“Isis the Great, the God’s Mother, Sothis, Queen of the Gods, Lady of the Sky, the Earth, and the Netherworld. Regnal year eight, under the majesty of the Horus, the Strong Bull, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, the Lord of the Two Lands, Horus, the God’s Son, beloved of all the gods, the…
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The sanctuary of Monte d’Accoddi, sacred centre of Sardinia
At the beginning of the third millennium B.C., at Monte d’Accoddi, someone raised his eyes to the sky. And, in the light of the night, he saw in the firmament the divine image of the mother, the Great Goddess, generator and nurturer of the Universe. Like the beings on earth, the stars had their own…
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The domus de janas and the Sardinian hypogeic tombs
In Sardinia, a primitive spiritual feeling that aims at self-knowledge and understanding of the world is expressed through stone since the Palaeolithic age. Stone is thus moulded as an image of one’s own being, anthropomorphic features become increasingly explicit in art, and architecture is the full expression of the sacredness. The ancient Sardinians trace thresholds…
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The pre-Nuragic mother goddess of Sardinia
The development of cultures in pre-Nuragic Sardinia reveals an inner search,through rituals and beliefs new metaphysical frames of meaning, new interpretations of existence are delineated. The primitive feeling of an order beyond nature, which transcends into the sphere of the sacred, is realised in the archetypal image of a female deity related to fertility. That…
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The “cromlechs” of the Golasecca necropolis
The Golasecca necropolis of Monsorino is located in a wooded area of the Ticino Park, consisting mostly of chestnut and dense oak forests. It is accessed via a rough, sometimes wild path that seems to be a testimony to primordial times, to remote eras of human wandering. The forest has the characteristics of a special…