A Dionysian Initiation

in The Gardens of Villa d´Este

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Dr. Guillermo Calvo Soriano

Villa d´Este
 Duperac Engraving
< The Four
Great Labyrinths
In perfect symmetry, the Four Great Labyrinths, in the lower part of
the garden, represent the Dissemination of the Divine Principle
in the Bodies and in the Matter, Symbols of the extreme dispersion
of the Spirit, they hide the Power of “Conversion” of this Mysterious
Point from which the Circle of the “Procession” turns on itself,
attracted by its Principle, transforming the Dissemination
of the Divine in the World, into a Movement of Reintegration.
 Movement worn by the Power of Love, a power of return.
We continue to travel the Via Amatoria that climbs through
the Garden in its Eastern part and leads to the Muses, in order
to Initiate us in the Mysteries of Dionysos, who participates in
this Reintegration Movement. He will not get drunk with Dionysos,
who has not first joined his Muse.
Apollo and his Musas
In the courtyard of the Tivoli Fountain we are in the company
of the Muses, trying to “re-measure the Force of the Passions”,
which leads “the Progress from Reason to Number”.
Let us be guided by Dionysos, the Guide of the Muses.
 He will immerse us in the intoxicating abundance
of the Divine Abode where Theology will come to settle, that is to say
“the Internal Vision of Divine Things”, with the help of the famous
epic. While we stop near the Fuente de la Lechuza, to let ourselves be
intoxicated by the Wine that escapes from his Wineskin.
 Theater and Fontana della Civetta
with entertainment Giocchi d´Acqva.
Design by Giovanni Francesco Venturini 1680 - 1690
 The Fountain of the Owl, dedicated to the Orphic Dionysus,
offers images of Bacchic Initiation. Here the Satyrs hold a Crater,
into which the Fauns pour Water
from a Bear made from a Boar Skin.
 Civetta Fountain
Dr. Guillermo Calvo Soriano
 According to an archaic use, this skin as a press, contains the
precious “Blood of the Wine”: pressed, torn, dismembered clusters,
which have suffered their “passion” and thus experiencing
“the Death of the Press”, like the Orphic Dionysus , the Child God,
who was torn to pieces, dismembered by the Titans and suffered the
“Passion” and the Death of “bouilli róti”,
being “roasted” in the Cauldron.
 Let us remember that
Dionysos, for the Orphics,
is the illegitimate Son born
of Zeus and Persephone.
He is the object
of Hera's Jealousy,
he is captured by
the Plaster-Masked Titans,
the powerful Ghosts
of the Beyond, who skin,
boil and roast his limbs.
From the Dismembered
Body of Dionysos,

only the living Heart remains, which Athena hastens to collect

and bury in the Apollonian Sanctuary at Delphi.
 Around this Heart,
Apollo gathers the scattered
Members of his Brother,
thus restoring Life
to the Child-God Sacrificed
and Reborn,
a theological metaphor
of the Dispersion
of the Divine Principle,
of his Dismemberment
and Reunification
in the Original Integrity of he.

Apollonian Sanctuary of Delphi

 In the Fontana della Civetta
during a Grape Crushing scene
performed by three Men
submerged in a Cuba,
the Grapes are torn apart
to release the Juice,
as the Titans tear
the Dismembered Body
of Dionysos.
 The Liquid that escapes
from the Bottle is the Blood
of the Reborn God-Child,
the Juice of the Wine,
purified and metamorphosed
into Wine, Symbol of
“Dionysos Botrys, Dionysos
Grappe”, who Dies Scattered
and “Reunites in
a New Body to be Reborn”.
This “New Body” dispenses
to Men a Liquor
of Immortality.
It came from Dionysos
that the Participants with
the Crowned head, share
in the Symposium, converted
into Diners of the Gods.
Civetta Fountain
Banquets formed around the Crater,
into which the Wine is poured from
the Odre, to mix it with measured
Water. Participants drink from
the Fountain of Eternal Life,
Rejuvenation and Perfect
Happiness. The Wineskin is
the image of the Mystic Wine Press,
Symbol of Death, but also,
above all, of Rebirth.
 According to
Orphic Theology,
Humanity
was born from
the Ashes of the
Titans killed
by Zeus,
who threw them
into Tartarus,
when he learned
from Athena
of the Sacrifice
of his Son.
From this Ascendancy, Humans have preserved both a fragment
of the Body of Dionysos, with which the Titans had Feasted,
and of the Divine Fire sent by Zeus.
 In the eyes of the Orphics, Humanity has inscribed in its Nature,
the Crime of the Titans, which gives it its Divine Part and, in order
to make this Dionysian and Divine Element triumph,
it must Purify itself, after having left the Divine Unity for Birth,
to be able to return to it.
 Invited to the Symposiums organized around the Crater and
the Spilled Wineskin, intoxicated by Bacchus and comforted by
the watchful and benevolent presence of Athena, the Participants
in these Banquets, guests of Ippolito d'Este, concerned about
the Future of their Soul, will have the Revelation,
in a Vision both Saving and Beatifying, of the Mystery of Death,
according to Dionysos, who is Renaissance.
Civetta Fountain
 Love is at the beginning
and at the end
of the Way of Overcoming
the Senses and
of the Ascension of the Soul
towards the Intelligible.
It reappears, in the highest
degree, in the form of
Philosophical Enthusiasm
and Ecstatic Ecstasy.
The Muses, Dionysos, Apollo
and Aphrodite,
are Emblems
of the Four Furies that lead
the Soul to the Origin
and to the Perfection
of Contemplation. Pegaso Fountain
 They are the Levels thanks
to which it Gradually Rises
along the Paths of Purification
and Enlightenment,
they constitute its Inner Scale,
and it is at the Summit
where it finds its Harmony
and its almost Divine Integrity.
 This theme of Divine Fury,
Inspiration and Enthusiasm
gradually leading the Soul on
its Ascending Path to the Divine
is at the Heart of the Neoplatonic
Meditation
of the Renaissance Humanists.
Ficino and Pico de la Mirandola
at it have dedicated many pages,
taken up and commented
on by many Authors.
 In his commentary on Plato's
Symposium, which he translated
from Latin into Italian under
the title “Sopra l'Amore”,
Marsilius Ficino describes
the Furor Divinis,
the Enthusiasm that seizes
the Inspired Soul, as the Power
by which God attracts the Soul.
towards Himself,
to restore its Divinity
and its Original Purity.
By Divine Delusion,
Man Rises Above His Own
Nature and Ascends to God.
Marsilius Ficino
 Ficino describes in this Work the Sequence of the Furies,
from the Muses to Dionysos, passing through Apollo and Venus,
which must lead the Soul to a Superior Unity,
to a Perfection that will authorize it to Unite
with the Principle from which it Emanates.
 The First Fury
calms the inner
dissonances and
disagreements.
The Second
refines those
parts in one
turn, which the
Third Raise
above their
Elements
and the Fourth
has a Unit
Superior to the Essence. The Tour itself, made in the first
two Degrees in the company of the Musical Muses, who calm
the dissonances, as well as Dionysos (Osiris) and Demeter (Isis),
Figures of the Mysteries who gather the Dispersed Elements
to combine them into One Whole.
 Now, back in the Courtyard from the Tivoli Fountain,
let us question Apollo and Venus, Last Degrees of Enthusiasm
that Leads the Soul to its Divine Origin.
 The Passion of Dionysos.
Showing the golden Head of
Orpheus dedicated respectively
to Artemis, Dionysos, Demeter
and Apollo. At the foot of each
of them there are figured scenes
whose sequence seems to forge
a significant framework.
Surrounding Artemis,
three young women present him
with an Offering,
a newborn Kid
that one of them hold
s in his arms.

The Head of Orpheus

 This Child is the Newborn
that Dionysos presented to Artemis,
the goddess who protects Births,
to pay him Homage;
Artemis,
the Virgin goddess who participates
in all the Generative Processes
of Nature and knows
the Mysteries of Fertility.

Artemis
 Maenades

The Goat about to be sacrificed under the effigy of a young Dionysos

flanked by a Fawn, is also Dionysos, sacrificed, torn, like those
Fawns that the Maenads tear to seize their skins to make
them Nebrids, Symbol of the Reunion to the god
and Submission to his Power.
 Dionysos

Let us meditate on the Orphic Dionysos Passion: his Birth, his Death
and his Rebirth in the guise of a sacrificed Kid, Pig, Deer, Bull,
Symbol of Resurrection since ancient times, medieval figure
of Christ triumphant over Death, Living Epiphanies of the God.
 Offered as
a Sacrifice
to the goddess,
the Dying Pig
at the foot of the
statue of Demeter,
Goddess
of the Harvest,
the heart pierced
by a blade
is Dionysos Dying,
but immediately
Triumphant.
Two Men brandish Ears of Wheat loaded with Grain. Buried
in the Earth, they will Germinate and Reborn, a new image of Death
and Regeneration that proclaims a paradoxical Beyond of Life
in Death.
 At the feet of Apollo,
a living Bull,
Epiphany of Dionysos
raises his mighty
stature, head and neck
adorned with Ivy
Wreaths in the manner
of Sacrificial Victims

Surrounding the Bull, three men are busy pouring a Libation from
the contents of a Crater, Wine, Blood of Dionysos, into a Bonfire.
Wine, which, mingling with the Flames, will communicate its own
igneous principle and will make them Ascend with more Vigour.
Dionysos is associated with the Vine, from the Grape to the Wine,
he is the Sacrificed god who is Reborn, like this Mystical Press
also present in Christian Iconography to signify
the Eucharistic Blood and Wine, Symbols of Rebirth.
By the Passion of the God of the Wine who sees his Sap mix with
his Blood to be Reborn under the Kind of Liquid Fire-Wine,
exalting his Igneous Principle in Harmony
and Raising Ardently towards Heaven.
 Two pairs
of Ephebes
seem to emanate
from
the pediments
of the Paintings
dedicated
to Dionysos
and Apollo.

Beauty of adolescent bodies represents both the image of Ideal

Beauty and that of the Rational Soul, the Garments of Access
to the Divine promised to Pure Souls that will join
directly to the Celestial World,
without suffering the Torments of the Aerial Hades.
 Dionysos and Apollo are vectors of the descent of the Spirits
into Souls and their Elevation, at the end of their Purification.
Diffusion of the Spirits in the arena and then in the Body,
to which these two Ephebes with waxy complexion, facing the Earth,
without a doubt bear witness,
while the Luminous Bodies of two others, facing the Sky,
represent their Triumphant Return towards the Ether.
The Human Passion and the Cosmic Passion merge in a Process
of Transformation that brings with it the Totality of the World.
Process of both Dispersion, represented by the Bacchanal Passion
Transmuted into a Rebirth, a Return and Reunification,
which leads to the Apollonian Unity of Ether,
in this Flame charged with Wine that Rises on the Altar of Apollo.
 Dionysos and Apollo, in their Antagonism
and their Necessary Union, represent this Great Cycle of Dispersed
and then Reunited Unity, of its dissemination in Souls
and Bodies and then of its Reunification in the Spirit.
 Demeter Artemis

Artemis and Demeter come to remind us of the paths of this process

that passes through Generation, the Wheel of Births and the
Regeneration of All Life under their auspices. Regeneration of which
Demeter is guarantor, under the species of Initiation
in her Cult of Mysteries, in Eleusis with whom Dionysos
and the Orphics were closely associated.
 Behind the figure of the god
DIONYSOS Sacrificed,
Dead and Reborn,
the Birth and Rebirth
of the Orphic Initiate is celebrated,
aware of being rich
in a portion of the Divinity
of the God
assimilated by the Titans
from which Humanity Descends.
 The Initiate now knows that through the figure
of this Newborn Child, it is the Immortal Soul that is incorporated,
suffers the Passion in a Body to be Reborn
and thus Return to its Celestial Origin.
Apollo and Dionysos participate fully in the Spirit of the World,
of this Spirit made of Heaven and Ether that Unites the Soul
to the Body, in Generation, under the Sign of Artemis,
and Escapes to Unite with the Celestial World
during its Regeneration under the imprint of Demeter.
 This Spirit is the Object
of Ficino's Meditation in his
“De Vita Coelitus Comparanda”,
the Spirit thanks to which
the world Generate
All Things.
This “Spirit
that nourishes from inside”,
according
to the expression of Virgil,
is intermediate between the Soul
and the Body of the World.
 For Ficino, this Spirit of the World is “a very tenuous Body,
which is, so to speak, not a Body, but already a Soul, and which
is also in a way already a Body. There is in its virtue very little
of Terrestrial Nature, more of Aqueous Matter, even more of Air and
still much more of Igneous and Stellar Nature”.
He compares this Spirit with the Aristotelian Fifth Essence,
with Incorruptible Ether, Spiritus Mundi that collects
the Powers of the Four Inferior Elements to be able
to penetrate the Sublunar Bodies and order them.
 Towards this Spirit of the World the Human Spirit must tend,
through the Initiation in the Mysteries, the Purification of the Soul;
it is he who she must fully embrace and absorb,
to prepare for her Return to the Ether and the Starry Vault.
 a

At the Cry of the Mystical Joy of DIONYSOS,

the yoke of Individuation is broken and The Path opens...
towards the most Secret depths of Things,
taking to its limit that from which the Soul must be Liberated.
 It is the Triumph of Music, Dionysian Art.
“We believe in Eternal Life” Exclaims the Tragedy.
Music is the Immediate Idea of that Life...
 DIONYSOS tends
to introduce Men
into the World of the Gods
and to transform them
into a Divine Race.
The Man agrees to align himself
in the Hope
of Being Transfigured.
 Every fervent Admirer of DIONYSOS
aspires to leave his Person by Ecstasy
and in the Outbursts of Enthusiasm
to place himself in Intimate Union with
the God of whom he is for a time possessed.
DIONYSOS is the God of Emancipation,
of the removal of prohibitions,
of Vents and Exuberance…
The Hieratic Triumph of God is the Marvel of Universal Life.
It acquires profound emotional value
as a Divine Prototype of the inexorable Destiny of Man.
 a

His Birth and Death constitute a prominent feature of the Mysteries.

The Secret Cult of him refers
to the representation of the Immortality of Nature…
 “DIONYSOS is the God who is Destroyed,
Who Disappears,
Who Renounces Life and then is Reborn Again...!”
Plutarch
 a

Represents one of the Great Forces

Givers of Life in the World,
DIONYSOS is the Symbol of Eternal Life…!!!
 Bibliography
- Gérard Desnoyers “La Villa d´Este a Tivoli”
ou “Le Songe d´Hippolyte”, Paris 2002