January 9, 2005
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Light at Bologna
“Others say it is a stone that posseses mysterious powers…. often
depicted as a dazzling light. It’s a symbol representing power, a
source of immense energy. It nourishes, heals, wounds, blinds,
strikes down…. Some have thought of it as the philosopher’s stone of
the alchemists….”– Foucault’s Pendulum
by Umberto Eco,
Professor of Semiotics at
Europe’s oldest university,
the University of Bologna.The Club
Dumasby Arturo Perez-Reverte
(Paperback, pages 346-347):One by one, he tore the engravings from the
book, until he had all nine. He looked at them closely.
“It’s a pity you can’t follow me where I’m going. As the fourth
engraving states, fate is not the same for all.”“Where do you believe you’re going?”
Borja dropped the mutilated book on the floor with the others. He was
looking at the nine engravings and at the circle, checking strange
correspondences between them.“To meet someone” was his enigmatic answer. “To search for the stone
that the Great Architect rejected, the philosopher’s stone, the basis
of the philosophical work. The stone of power. The devil likes
metamorphoses, Corso. From Faust’s black dog to the false angel of
light who tried to break down Saint Anthony’s resistance. But
most of all, stupidity bores him, and he hates monotony….”Eclogues:
Eight Storiesby Guy Davenport
Johns Hopkins paperback, 1993, page 127 —
Lo Splendore della Luce a Bologna, VI:“In 1603, at Monte Paderno, outside Bologna, an alchemist (by day a
cobbler) named Vicenzo Cascariolo discovered the
Philosopher’s Stone, catalyst in the transformation of base metals into
gold, focus of the imagination, talisman for abstruse thought.
Silver in some lights, white in others, it glowed blue in darkness,
awesome to behold.”
The
Discovery
of Luminescence:The
Bolognian
Stone
Bologna, 16th Century“For the
University of Bologna hosting an
International Conference on Bioluminescence and Chemiluminescence has a
very
special significance. Indeed, it is in our fair City that modern
scientific
research on these phenomena has its earliest roots….‘After submitting the stone
to much
preparation,
it was not
the Pluto
of Aristophanes
that resulted; instead, it was
the Luciferous Stone’ ”From one of the best books
of the 20th
century:The
Hawkline Monsterby Richard Brautigan
“The Chemicals that resided in the jar were a
combination of hundreds of things from all over the world. Some
of The Chemicals were ancient and very difficult to obtain. There
were a few drops of something from an Egyptian pyramid dating from the
year 3000 B.C.There were distillates from the jungles of South America and drops of
things from plants that grew near the snowline in the Himalayas.Ancient China, Rome and Greece had contributed things, too, that had
found their way into the jar. Witchcraft and modern science, the
latest of discoveries, had also contributed to the contents of the
jar. There was even something that was reputed to have come all
the way from Atlantis….… they did not know that the monster was an illusion created by a
mutated light in The Chemicals. a light that had the power to work its
will upon mind and matter and change the very nature of reality to fit
its mischievous mind.”
