wherein the king famously discerns the real mother of an
infant whose life hangs in the balance.
No Renaissance palace would be complete without
a cabinet of curiosities, a chamber wherein precious
objects, works of art and sheer oddities were displayed
for the delectation of the owner and a select complement
of guests. Such cabinets were the
ancestors of what we know today
as museums. Alessandro Farnese's
collection is no longer at Caprarola, but
in the Room of Hermatena (Hermes and
Athena) one may detect where it was
likely displayed. Here resides a most
extraordinary fresco, a double portrait
of Hermes, representing Knowledge
and Athena, symbolizing Eloquence,
conjoined in a single hermaphroditic
body. In alchemy, the hermaphrodite
represents Mercury (Roman name for
Hermes) a substance both liquid and
solid, a symbol of complementary
opposites which compose the
Absolute. "As above, so below," the
maxim of alchemy and Hermeticism applied. I distinctly
recall Julia and her sister-in-law, Countess French, visiting
from Ireland, during one long summer's lunch at Singing
Beach, Massachusetts, discussing the symbolism of this
image in conjunction with a young man they might possibly
have known and last seen just before or during the First
World War: he, lost in that conflict, triggering a reference
to d'Annunzio, but that is another story. Julia believed that
the Hermatena symbolized special personalities so fully
engaged in life that they could only be represented by such
HYLAND
