Arcadian Academies.

According to the then Editor [early 2000's] of the now defunct Rennes Observer,  [Gay Roberts], a letter had arrived at the office under the pseudonym of Alteo. This Alteo [a name which originates from Latin and means 'noble, high, old'. It carries connotations of an elevated status and wisdom] advised several points that needed to be looked at in regard to the mystery of Rennes-le-Château. 'Alteo' felt moved to say that several researchers were 'on the right track' and named three in particular, of which I was included. 

He referenced the idea of time and truth & suggested we look into the role of Rospigliosi and the painting 'Shepherds of Arcadia'. [You can read about this HERE]. 

While doing previous research into Rennes I had already come across Rospigliosi. He is said to have been behind the enigmatic motto 'Et in Arcadia Ego ...' [by the biographer of Nicolas Poussin], a phrase used by Poussin in his most famous of paintings, 'The Shepherds of Arcadia'.

This painting has been claimed by Plantard to be central to the mystery of Rennes-le-Château. This is via the famous coded so called Saunière Parchments and by the later discovery of a tomb similar to that in the Poussin painting in the vicinity of Arques, not far from Rennes-le-Château. 

This tomb at Arques came to public notice in the 60’s when the Priory of Sion presented the story of Berenger Saunière finding parchments in his church during renovations. Through the decoded information in these parchments Saunière supposedly obtained a copy of the ’Shepherds of Arcadia’ painting for himself. A few years later the authors of the Holy Blood, Holy Grail were told of the exact replica of the so-called Poussin tomb depicted in this painting in the vicinity of Rennes-le-Château.  All in all one is led to simply conclude that there is some deep and abiding mystery associated with the Tomb at Pontils/Arques. 

As it turns out the tomb really has nothing to do with Rennes-le-Château but more to do with an old Meridian that runs close to the sister village of Rennes-les-Bains. Even if this is the origin of the enigma how is it related to Francis Bacon, Rospigliosi and Rennes-les-Bains itself and historical Arcadian Academies? 

In this investigation we will look at what the geographical/historical & mythological Arcadia was/is, how Arcadia was appropriated through historical periods and why and how this leads one to the enigma of the Two Rennes!

ARCADIA

Above - the geographical Arkadia idyll in the Peloponnese by Ulrich Tichy, Tuebingen.

The term "Arcadia" has several meanings depending on the context as we have a geographical & historical aspect, a mythological aspect and a Renaissance poetical aspect.

Geographically Arcadia is a region in the central Peloponnese in ancient Greece. It was considered a wild and rural area, known for a rugged landscape and an original pastoral lifestyle. In those ancient times Arcadia became synonymous with a peaceful, unspoiled wilderness, home to shepherds and nature deities and other Gods. The name of Arcadia itself came from the mythological character Arcas₁ and in Greek mythology it was the home of the gods Hermes and Pan. 

The original ancient Arcadian people are considered one of the oldest Greek tribes in Greece and were probably part of, or a relative tribe of, the aboriginal inhabitants of Greece, who are mentioned by the ancient authors as Pelasgians₂. For example, according to the Iliad₃, the Pelasgians camped out on the shore together with these following tribes: 

Towards the sea lie the Carians and the Paeonians, with curved bows, and the Leleges and Caucones, and the goodly Pelasgi. 

In the Odyssey₄ the Pelasgians appear among the inhabitants of Crete. Odysseus, affecting to be Cretan himself, instances Pelasgians among the tribes in the ninety cities of Crete, where last on his list, Homer distinguishes them from other ethnicities on the island: 

"Cretans proper", Achaeans, Cydonians (of the city of Cydonia/modern Chania), Dorians, and "noble Pelasgians". 

The Pelasgians are listed by Homer as allies of the Trojans fighting against the tribes of Greeks in the Trojan War₅.

Whilst Herodotus seems to have found the idea that the Arcadians were not Greek far-fetched, it is clear that the Arcadians were considered as the original inhabitants of the region. This is testified by ancient myths, like the myth of Arcas, the myth of Lycaon etc. 

Arcadia was also the location of the cult of Despoina & part of the Arcadian mysteries₆. Despoina means "the mistress", but was only a title given to the goddess, and was not her real name, which was told only to those initiated in the mysteries. Despoina, along with Demeter, her mother, was the primary deity worshipped in Arcadia. 

Demeter herself was an Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grains, food, and the fertility of the earth. She also appeared as a goddess with connections to the Underworld. Through her brother Zeus, she became the mother of Persephone, a fertility goddess and resurrection deity_7.

In Mythology and Literature Arcadia is often depicted as an idyllic and harmonious vision of nature, frequently invoked in European Renaissance and later literature as a symbol of pastoral beauty and simplicity. It became a setting for pastoral poetry and was idealised as a land of peace and simplicity far removed from the chaos of urban life. Virgil₈ gained fame in Roman literature through his pastoral poems, where shepherds live simple, contented lives in tune with nature. This idea has been widely embraced in literature, art, and philosophy, symbolizing a paradise untouched by the troubles of civilisation. The analogy is often made with a garden, a 'Garden' also inhabited by shepherds. Although commonly thought of as being in line with Utopian ideals₉ Arcadia and its representation as a garden utopia is also seen as a lost, Edenic form of life, contrasting to the progressive nature of Utopian and urban desires. 

In the Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Edenis the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2–3 and Ezekiel 28 and 31. The story of Eden echoes the Mesopotamian myth of a king, as primordial man usually called Adam Kadmon, or simply Adam. Philo was the first to use the expression "original man," [or "heavenly man,"], and in whose view  "was born in the image of God, has no participation in any corruptible or earth like essence; whereas the earthly man is made of loose material, called a lump of clay." Earthly man, created by God later, is perceptible to the senses and partakes of earthly qualities is placed in a divine garden to guard the tree of life. The name Eden derives from the Akkadian edinnu, from a Sumerian word edin meaning 'plain' or 'steppe', closely related to an Aramaic root word meaning 'fruitful, well-watered'. 

The garden of the Hesperides in Greek mythology was also somewhat similar to the Jewish concept of the Garden of Eden, and by the 16th century a larger intellectual association was made in the Cranach painting. Other scholars reconstructed close Canaanite parallels, which are suggested to be at the origin of the biblical creation myth from the first chapters of Genesis including the Garden of Eden and Adam narrative. The term jannāt ʿadni ("Gardens of Eden" or "Gardens of Perpetual Residence") is used in the Quran for the destination of the righteous. The Quran mentions only one tree in Eden, the tree of immortality, from which God specifically forbade Adam and Eve. The 2nd-century Gnostic teacher Justin held that there were three original divinities, a transcendental being called the Good, an intermediate male figure known as Elohim and Eden who is an Earth-mother. The world is created from the love of Elohim and Eden. 

Arcadia in English poetry is often called Arcady, an ideal rustic paradise. The inhabitants of this Arcady bear an obvious connection to the figure of the noble savage, a person who is uncorrupted by civilisation. As such, the "noble" savage symbolises the innate goodness and moral superiority of a primitive people living in harmony with Nature. They therefore live close to nature, uncorrupted by civilisation, and virtuous. The art historian Erwin Panofsky explains that:

There had been, from the beginning of Classical speculation, two contrasting opinions about the natural state of man, each of them, of course, a "Gegen-Konstruktion" to the conditions under which it was formed. One view, termed "soft" primitivism in an illuminating book by Lovejoy and Boas, conceives of primitive life as a golden age of plenty, innocence, and happiness — in other words, as civilised life purged of its vices. The other, "hard" form of primitivism conceives of primitive life as an almost subhuman existence full of terrible hardships and devoid of all comforts — in other words, as civilised life stripped of its virtues.
— Et in Arcadia Ego: Poussin and the Elegiac Tradition (1936)

This Golden Age - which also comes from Greek mythology, particularly the Works and Days of Hesiod, is part of the description of the temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the Golden Race of humanity (Greek: χρύσεον γένος chrýseon génos) lived. After the end of the first age was the Silver, then the Bronze, after this the Heroic age, with the fifth and current age being Iron. By extension, "Golden Age" denotes a period of primordial peace, harmony, stability, and prosperity. During this age, peace and harmony prevailed in that people did not have to work to feed themselves for the earth provided food in abundance. They lived to a very old age with a youthful appearance, eventually dying peacefully, with spirits living on as "guardians". Plato in Cratylus recounts the golden race of humans who came first. He clarifies that Hesiod did not mean literally made of gold, but good and noble.

A tradition arose in Greece that the site of the original Golden Age had been Arcadia. However, in the 3rd century BCE, the Greek poet, Theocritus, writing in Alexandria, set his pastoral poetry on the lushly fertile island of Sicily, where he had been born. The protagonist of Theocritus's first Idyll₁₀, the goat herder, Daphnis, is taught to play the Syrinx (panpipes) by Pan himself. Writing in Latin during the turbulent period of revolutionary change at the end of the Roman Republic (roughly between 44 and 38 BCE), the poet Virgil then moved the setting for his pastoral imitations of Theocritus back to an idealised Arcadia in Greece, thus initiating the rich and resonant tradition in subsequent European literature.

Virgil, moreover, introduced into his poetry the element of political allegory, which had been largely absent in Theocritus, even intimating in his fourth Eclogue that a new Golden Age of peace and justice was about to return:

Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung
Has come and gone, and the majestic roll
Of circling centuries begins anew:
Astraea returns,
Returns old Saturn's reign,
With a new breed of men sent down from heaven.

Somewhat later, shortly before he wrote his epic poem the Aeneid, which dealt with the establishment of Roman Imperial rule, Virgil composed his Georgics (29 BCE), modeled directly on Hesiod's Works and Days and similar Greek works. Ostensibly about agriculture, the Georgics are in fact a complex allegory about how man's alterations of nature (through works) are related to good and bad government. Although Virgil does not mention the Golden Age by name in the Georgics, he does refer in them to a time where man was in harmony with nature before the reign of Jupiter, when:

Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen
To mark the plain or mete with boundary-line.
Even this was impious; for the common stock
They gathered, and the earth of her own will
All things more freely, no man bidding, bore.

(Georgics, Book 1: 125–28)

This view, which identifies a State of Nature with the celestial harmony of which man's nature is (or should be, if properly regulated) a microcosm, reflects the Hellenistic cosmology that prevailed among literate classes of Virgil's era. It is seen again in Ovid's Metamorphoses (7 CE), in which the lost Golden Age is depicted as a place and time when, because nature and reason were harmoniously aligned, men were naturally good:

The Golden Age was first; when Man, yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted Reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc'd by punishment, un-aw'd by fear.
His words were simple, and his soul sincere;
Needless was written law, where none opprest:
The law of Man was written in his breast.

These concepts of Arcadia then have several re-occuring themes running through them;

• a peaceful, unspoiled wilderness, home to shepherds and deities. Home of the Arcadians.
• the location of the cult of Despoina, part of the Arcadian religious mysteries, a fertility goddess and resurrection deity.
• Immortality - the concept of eternal life
• a setting for pastoral poetry idealised as a land of peace and simplicity, far removed from the chaos of urban life.
• analogy is often made with a garden, a 'Garden' inhabited by shepherds.
• this utopia is seen as a lost, Edenic form of life,
• the story echoes the abode of primordial man or "original man,"
• it is the Golden Age of humankind
• the golden race of humans who came first.
• the goat herder, Daphnis, and his tomb. 
• Virgil and his descriptions of a tomb

In all of this I tend to see that the Arcadian theme is about ORIGINS. 

Above - The romantic Arcadian paradise/garden

"Et in Arcadia Ego" 

This is a Latin phrase most commonly associated with art, particularly with the famous paintings by Nicolas Poussin and Guercino. The phrase has been subject to multiple interpretations, often carrying deeper philosophical meanings. 

The Literal Translations:

• "Even in Arcadia, I am."
• "I" in this context is often interpreted as Death, meaning that even in the idyllic and peaceful Arcadia, death exists.

There is also a Philosophical and Artistic Meaning:

• Memento Mori: The phrase serves as a reminder of human mortality. Even in an idealised paradise (Arcadia), death is present, suggesting that no one, not even in a perfect world, can escape death.
• In art, it is usually depicted in pastoral or serene settings, often with shepherds discovering a tomb, serving as a poignant reflection on the inevitability of death, even in the most serene or perfect places.

Et in Arcadia ego (also known as Les bergers d'Arcadie or The Arcadian Shepherds) is a 1637–38 painting by French painter Nicolas Poussin. It depicts a pastoral scene with idealised shepherds from classical antiquity, and a woman, possibly a shepherdess, gathered around an austere tomb that includes the inscription "Et in Arcadia ego", which is translated to "Even in Arcadia, there am I"; "Also in Arcadia am I"; or "I too was in Arcadia". Poussin also painted another version of the subject in 1627 under the same title.

It is thought that the inspiration for the painting comes from a tomb with a memorial inscription (to Daphnis) amid the idyllic setting of Arcadia as first described in Virgil's Eclogues [V 42 ff]. Virgil took the idealised rustics included in the Idylls of Theocritus and set them in the primitive Greek region of Arcadia [see Eclogues VII and X]. As we saw above Virgil brought into his concept the political allegory and the return of a Golden Age. 

Virgil created a Roman version partly by offering a dramatic and mythic interpretation of revolutionary change at Rome in the turbulent period between roughly 44 and 38 BC. Virgil introduced political clamour largely absent from Theocritus' poems, the idylls ('little scenes' or 'vignettes'), even though erotic turbulence disturbs the "idyllic" landscapes of Theocritus. For example Eclogue 1 has been viewed as reflecting the infamous land-confiscations after the return of Mark Antony and Octavian's joint forces from the Battle of Philippi of 42 BCE, in which Brutus and Cassius (the orchestrators of Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE) were defeated. Eclogue 4, also called the Messianic Eclogue,imagines a golden age ushered in by the birth of a boy heralded as "great increase of Jove" (magnum Iovis incrementum). The poet makes this notional scion of Jove the occasion to predict his own metabasis up the scale in epos, rising from the humble bucolic to the lofty range of the heroic, potentially rivaling Homer: he thus signals his own ambition to make Roman epic that will culminate in the Aeneid. In the surge of ambition, Virgil also predicts defeating the legendary poet Orpheus and his mother, the epic muse Calliope, as well as Pan, the inventor of the bucolic pipe, even in Pan's homeland of Arcadia, which Virgil will claim as his own at the climax of his book in the tenth eclogue. Identification of the fourth eclogue's child has proved elusive, but one common solution is that it refers to the predicted child of the sister of Octavian, Octavia the Younger, who had married Mark Antony in 40 BC. The poem is dated to 40 BC by the reference to the consulship of Gaius Asinius Pollio, Virgil's patron at the time, to whom the eclogue is addressed. In later years, it was often assumed that the boy predicted in the poem was Christ. The connection is first made in the Oration of Constantine appended to the Life of Constantine by Eusebius of Caesarea (a reading to which Dante makes fleeting reference in his Purgatorio). Some scholars have also noted similarities between the eclogue's prophetic themes and the words of Isaiah 11:6: "a little child shall lead". In Eclogue 10, Virgil replaces Theocritus' Sicily and old bucolic hero, the impassioned oxherd Daphnis, with the impassioned voice of his contemporary Roman friend, the elegiac poet Gaius Cornelius Gallus, imagined dying of love in Arcadia. Virgil transforms this remote, mountainous, and myth-ridden region of Greece, homeland of Pan, into the original and ideal place of pastoral song, thus founding a richly resonant tradition in western literature and the arts.
This eclogue is the origin of the phrase omnia vincit amor ("love conquers all"). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclogues].

A tomb with a memorial inscription (to Daphnis) amid the idyllic settings of Arcadia is first described in Virgil's Eclogues V 42 ff. 

"Now, O ye shepherds, strew the ground with leaves, And o’er the fountains draw a shady veil—
So Daphnis to his memory bids be done—And rear a tomb, and write thereon this verse: ‘I, Daphnis in the woods, from hence in fame Am to the stars exalted, guardian once - Of a fair flock, myself more fair than they.’

Elias L. Rivers suggested that in fact the phrase "Et In Arcadia Ego" is derived from the line from Daphnis' funeral in Virgil's Fifth Eclogue cited above - Daphnis ego in silvis ("Daphnis was I amid the woods"), and that it referred to the dead shepherd within the tomb, rather than Death itself (in Et In Arcadia Ego: Essays on Death in the Pastoral Novel). 

Art critics have surmised that Poussin, when painting his first and second versions of his ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’ - used in the first version, as a model for the tomb central to the painting that tomb described in the writings by the poet Virgil, the description of Daphnis tomb. In this poem, the occupant is male. However, in the much more famous second version of the ‘Shepherds of Arcadia' (in the Louvre) Poussin seems to have used the poem of Sannazaro and his description for his artistic Arcadian tomb. Except in Sannazaro’s tomb the occupant has changed sex and is a female.

Virgils tomb of Daphnis is described as follows in Virgil's Eclogues:

" A lasting monument to Daphnis raise
                                         With this inscription to record his praise;
                                   'Daphnis, the fields' delight, the shepherds' love,
                                         Renown'd on earth and deifi'd above;
                                  Whose flocks excelled the fairest on the plains,
                                   But less than he himself surpassed the swains."

Later Sannazaro depicted this Arcadian tomb as follows in lines 257-267 (relating to the tomb of Phyllis). He mused:

    “I will make thy tomb famous and renowned among these rustic folk. Shepherds shall come from the hills of Tuscany and Liguria to worship this corner of the world solely because thou hast dwelt here once. And they shall read on the beautiful square monument the inscription that chills my heart at all hours, that makes me strangle so much sorrow in my breast: 'She who always showed herself so haughty and rigid to Meliseo now lies entombed, meek and humble, in this cold stone'."

According to Poussin’s first biographer Bellori, the idea for the ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’ came from Rospigliosi, a prelate of the Roman Catholic church and a later Pope. Bellori was at the time a good friend of Poussin and he suggested that it was not only the idea of the Arcadian painting that Rospigliosi gave to Poussin but to two other paintings around the same time. These assertions by Bellori seem to have been accepted by art scholars such as Marin. Marin even goes so far as to say that it was Rospigliosi who:

‘ ..invented the phrase ‘et in arcadia ego…’  

Bellori refers to these Rospigliosian group of three paintings as ‘moral poems’ and he ascribes all the ideas in them to him. Then if an important  ‘secret’ was hidden in the ‘Arcadia’ painting [as some assert] surely Rospigliosi must have known of it too? How would Rospigliosi have gotten this knowledge and why ask Poussin to encode it in a painting? Or was Poussin working alone? Anyway Bellori wrote the following about the three Rospigliosio paintings;

"The dance of human life.

In addition to the fables he has painted, we will report some moral concepts he has preferred in painting, among which the most beautiful is the representation of human life in the dance of four women related to the four seasons. He depicted Time playing with the lyre, at whose side four women Poverty, Toil, Wealth, and Lull alternately join hands in a circle, and dance perpetually, varying the strength of the men. Each of them has its own shape: before them is Heaven and Wealth, one crowned with pearls and gold, another garlanded with roses and flowers, pompously adorned. Behind them is Poverty in a merry dress, her head wreathed with leaves, in remembrance of her lost possessions. She is accompanied by Labour, who covers her bare shoulders with her arms hardened and brown, and looking at his companion, he shows the strain of his body, the suffering. At his feet Time sees a child, who holds in his hand and contemplates a watch with dust, counting the moments of his life. On the opposite side his companion, like children playing, blows from a small pipe with his breath, globes of foam and air, which thunder there at a moment, the counterpart of the vanity and brevity of life itself. Here is the blade of Janus in the form of Terminus, and the Sun runs through the air in his chariot with open arms within the scythe of the Zodiac, in imitation of Raphael, preceding Dawn, who scatters white flowers in the morning, and behind follow the dancing Horae in flight. The object of that moral poetry was given to the Painter by Pope Clement IX at the time that he was Prelate. Nicholas preceded in the concept of a noble and strange invention, and although the figures are barely two palms, he was able to happily correspond in them to the futility of the Author, who added the two following typhoid inventions.

Truth discovered by time.

Time swallowed up on his wings, rising from the earth - with one hand he takes the arm of Truth, and the oppressed and lying madness, with the other he chases away Iniquity, who in leaving there bites the arm, shaking her ferpentous locks, while Maliciousness was a faithful companion, behind Truth, all blinded, shakes, and vibrates two torches.

Happiness subject to death.

[original title of Shepherds of Arcadia]

The third moral poem is the memory of death in human properties. It is a Shepherd of happy Arcadia, who, kneeling on the ground, points to and reads the inscription on a tomb (struck with these characters 'and in Arcadia I am', that is, that the tomb is still in Arcadia, and that death takes place in the midst of happiness). Behind him is a garlanded youth, who leans against that tomb, and gazes intently at the epentherium; another leans forward and points out the words to a graceful Nymph, vaguely adorned, who holds her hand on a ball of elfin, and in looking at me, the fall of the reed gives rise to the hanging of death. In another..."

Giulio Rospigliosi (1600–1669) is best known for becoming Pope Clement IX, serving as the head of the Catholic Church from 1667 to 1669. His life and career are notable for their contributions to both the Church and the arts, particularly in the context of the Baroque era. The Rospigliosi family was of minor nobility, and Giulio was educated in Rome, where he studied philosophy and theology. He held various posts in the Church, including being a papal nuncio (ambassador) to Spain under Pope Urban VIII. His diplomacy and piety impressed many, leading to his rise in the Church hierarchy. Rospigliosi was made a cardinal in 1657 by Pope Alexander VII, and he played an important role in both church governance and diplomacy. He was elected as pope on June 20, 1667, and took the name Clement IX. His papacy was relatively brief, lasting only until his death on December 9, 1669. 

Rospigliosi was a patron of the arts, particularly music, theater, and architecture. He had a strong interest in Baroque art and was instrumental in commissioning works from artists such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Before becoming pope, Rospigliosi was known as a playwright and librettist. He wrote several librettos for operas, including works composed by Stefano Landi and Luigi Rossi, which were performed in Rome. His most famous opera libretto was "Sant'Alessio" (1632), written for Stefano Landi. It is considered one of the earliest examples of Roman opera.

So if Rospigliosi was taken with the Arcadia theme and was a patron to the Arts he in this respect  mimicking the much earlier Lorenzo de' Medici [see below]. The Arcadian theme was taken up anew in the circle of Lorenzo de' Medici in the 1460s and 1470s, during the Florentine Renaissance which we will discuss further below. 

In his pastoral work Arcadia (1504), Jacopo Sannazaro fixed the Modern perception of Arcadia as a lost world of idyllic bliss, remembered in regretful dirges. The first pictorial representation of the familiar memento mori theme, which was popularized in 16th-century Venice, now made more concrete and vivid by the inscription ET IN ARCADIA EGO, is Guercino's version, painted between 1618 and 1622. 

The inscription gains force from the prominent presence of a skull in the foreground, beneath which the words are carved. Poussin's first version of the painting (now in Chatsworth House) was probably commissioned as a reworking of Guercino's version. It is in a more Baroque style than the later version, and is characteristic of Poussin's early work. In the Chatsworth painting, the shepherds are discovering the half-hidden and overgrown tomb, and are reading the inscription with curious expressions. The woman, standing at the left, is posed in suggestive fashion, very different from her austere counterpart in the later version, which is based on a statue from antiquity known as the Cesi Juno. The later version has a far more geometric composition and the figures are much more contemplative.

The literal translation of "Et in Arcadia Ego" is "Even in Arcadia, there am I". Poussin's earliest biographer, Giovanni Pietro Bellori, understood the 'I' of the phrase to refer to Death, thus making the painting a memento mori, reminding the viewer that even in the blissful utopia of Arcadia, death still exists. Another biographer, André Félibien, interpreted the 'I' to refer to the occupant of the tomb, but still took the overall meaning of the painting to be a reminder that death is present even in idyllic Arcadia.The most important difference between the two versions is that in the latter version, one of the two shepherds recognizes the shadow of his companion on the tomb and circumscribes the silhouette with his finger. According to an ancient tradition this is the moment in which the art of painting is first discovered. Thus, the shepherd's shadow is the first image in art history. But the shadow on the tomb is also a symbol of death (in fact a scythe, but in the first version symbolised by a skull on the top of the tomb). The meaning of this highly intricate composition seems to be that, from prehistory onward, the discovery of art has been the creative response of humankind to the shocking fact of mortality. Thus, death’s claim to rule even Arcadia is challenged by art (symbolised by the beautifully dressed maiden), who must insist that she was discovered in Arcadia too, and that she is the legitimate ruler everywhere, whilst death only usurps its power.

The vagueness of the phrase is the subject of a famous essay by the art historian Erwin Panofsky, who suggested that, compared to Poussin's 1627 version, this second version shifted the focus from a warning about the inevitability of death to a contemplation of the past and a sense of nostalgia. In the course of this re-interpretation of his own composition by Poussin himself the meaning of the inscription changed. Notwithstanding the rules of Latin grammar, according to which et should be conjuncted with Arcadia, not with ego, in Panofsky’s view, the speaker now is no longer death, but the dead, who, speaking to the viewer from the tomb, reminds him that he himself once was enjoying his happy life in Arcadia. It would be remiss of me not to mention the discussions of what the term means for my colleague  Gino OLIVIERO in respect of the Enigma of the Two Rennes. He wrote;

"Starting with this intention, and looking at the “motto”, the sentence immediately appears to be lacking a “finished” sense, as the verb is not present. It seems strange for us but in the Latin language, in sentences with a paradigmatic meaning like sayings or mottoes, the verb is omitted many times. In these cases, then, we are very rarely entitled to assume that the omitted verb is a verb different from the “Sum” verb, that is to say: to be. In our case we may conjecture (by the presence of “ego”) that the subject is a first person singular so, the sentence could be: “Et in Arcadia ego sum” (and I am in Arcadia). Even with the verb added, the sentence still sounds a bit “incomplete”. We can resolve this problem by recalling to our minds that the word “et” in Latin, is also used as a kind of short form for “etiam” meaning “also” in English. Now the sentence becomes “I am also in Arcadia”.

The normal explanation of this translation, especially with reference to the Guercino and the Poussin paintings, is that the 'who' speaks of Death, symbolised by the skull (Guercino) or the tomb (Poussin). That death, in short, claims that 'it' (death) is also in Arcadia, that is to say that even in Arcadia people die. This Greek region in literature was considered as a sort of pastoral paradise on earth, where Gods lived among men: a literary 'topos' that has been celebrated by a great number of poems through many centuries.

At this point, i realised that although in English you’re always obliged to express the personal pronoun in order to distinguish the grammatical person (I went, you went, he went etc…), in Latin it is different and you’re not obliged to do that. In fact, the Latin sentence “Et in Arcadia sum”, can also mean “I am also in Arcadia” as well, because you can use the word “sum”, in connection with the first person singular only. The Latin language however, can offer another possibility. You can also write “Et in Arcadia” and although the verb is lacking a “motto”, it can still be considered as grammatically correct. In this case, the translation changes, as a normal latin reader, would translate it as: “he/she/it is in Arcadia” because with no clues, we are entitled to use “est” only (to be 3rd person singular = “is”). 

But… in this case, who is in Arcadia? The skull? (Guercino), the tomb? (Poussin), Death? (both). 

We cannot be sure about what the right answer is. That’s why in my opinion “Ego” is important and has not been omitted, because by doing so, the sentence could probably be interpreted in a wrong way. Another important thing we must remember, is that Pierre Plantard, speaking about his family motto, said that it is not complete if we cut out the three dots: “ Et in Arcadia ego …”. 

Are they markers for lacking letters? In this case, we’re probably on the right track as the word “sum”, is composed of three letters. At this point, the “main search” seems over: are there any other possible paths of interpretation hidden by the wood for the trees? 

I began considering that in this short sentence, the sole meaningful word is “Arcadia” and as a consequence, I started to collect a huge amount of information about it, from the Greek region to the Italian academy and its members..... Experience teaches that the best riddles are those where the solution is under your nose: the problem is that you do not recognise it. To cut a long story short, I was looking at a picture with the Marie de Negre tombstone and suddenly, the inspiring “Requies catin pace" instead of “Requiescat in pace” struck me. I started to think that maybe, the solution could be into a different word splitting. I had one way only because, as a matter of fact, the sole and longer word I could divide in two parts was “Arcadia”: Arca + dia. Apart from the well known meanings for “Arca” such as “chest” and “box”, it also has some intriguing other ones like: “prison cell”, “cell”, “coffin” as well as “cistern” and “reservoir”, the last two meanings in particular, come from the Vitruvius opus “De Architectura”.

To understand what “arca” could also mean, I may quote Cicero (Pro Milone, 22 end) where he wrote:

[Servi] in arcas coniciuntur, ne quis cum iis colloqui possit
[Slaves] were put in (prison) cells to not let anyone be able to speak with them

In this case Cicero uses the word “arca(s)” to give us the idea of a room, separated from external environment to isolate someone, exactly like a prison cell does.

The meaning of “coffin”, is also pretty common as we can see in Lucanus (e.g. Pharsalia 8, 736) and others:

Da vilem Magno plebeii funeris arcam
Give to the Great [Pompeus] the poor coffin of the plebeian funeral

So, the more general meaning of “tomb” for the word “arca”, is also included, as the two can translate as “coffin” and “(closed) cell” and each meaning does not exclude the other.

As regards “Dia”, it is a rare female adjective, an archaic (but also used in the Ist century B.C.) poetic form for the more common “Diva” (from divus, -a, -um adjective) meaning “divine” in the nominative, vocative and ablative case.

“Et in arca dia ego (sum)” now, sounds really interesting as we can translate it as “I am also in the divine tomb” or better “also I am in the divine tomb”. The translation can even be improved using the past tense for the verb to be, as the sense seems to suggest, so the sentence becomes “Et in Arcadia ego (fui)”: Also I was in the divine tomb. As a matter of fact, the word “fui” (I was) is composed of three letters and can perfectly fit the three dots (if we think of them as markers for lacking letters) Pierre Plantard talked about. The sentence could, in this way, represent a marker to recognize “those who know the secret”, as a kind of sect or elite group, who had the privilege to go inside the “divine tomb” (whatever it could be) because the clear meaning of the motto is “I also am one of those who entered the divine tomb”. 

Above - Poussin's most famous painting depicted on his own tomb "the  bas-relief on Poussin's tomb in S. Lorenzo church (Rome) where one of the shepherds covers the  letters "-dia" of the word Arcadia allowing us to see the word "Arca" only”.

Others have noted that the word Arcadia itself is probably composed of the words Arca (= tomb) and Dia (= of Zeus or God), meaning “The Tomb of Zeus” or “Divine Tomb“.

SO if an important  ‘secret’ was hidden in the ‘Arcadia’ painting surely Rospigliosi must have known of it too? How would Rospigliosi have gotten this knowledge and why encode it and why ask Poussin to encode it in a painting?  

Perhaps it was through a society such as the Arcadian Academy? 

There have been several Arcadian Academies. One was created by René I of Anjou. Then there was one created by Lorenzo the Magnificent. The family of René and Lorenzo seemed connected. Another was created by Christina of Sweden and a further group was created by the clergy at the same time as Christina. 

Later there are hints that an Arcadian idyll was and is associated with Rennes-les-Bains. The themes are then found in Cherisey's novel CIRCUIT. Was there a continuation of an idea or of particular knowledge entrusted to exceptional artists, poets and clergy? 

René I of Anjou

Using his numerous Italian possessions as a base of operations, Rene spent many years in Italy and became the greatest thinking salesman of all time. He inspired sponsorship from the ruling Sforza family of Milan and his friend Cosimo de Medici. He got them to send their agents all over the world in quest of ancient manuscripts. As a result, in 1444, Cosimo opened Europe's first public library - the Library of San Marco which now made available, for the first time, the thinking and ideas that had been suppressed for centuries. Translations of Platonic,  Neo-Platonic, Pythagorea, Gnostic and Hermetic thought were now readily accessible at last. This first public library burst apart the thinking cartel of the Dark Ages! Cosimo also instructed the University of Florence to begin teaching Greek for the first time in Europe for seven hundred years. He established many academies throughout Italy which sought to add value to the knowledge that existed by freedom of thought, exploration and research, and the general improvement of thinking as it then stood. This operation to improve the quality of thinking was successful. It broke the Church's monopoly on thinking and the new "quest for excellence" became the theme for the high culture of the Renaissance which rapidly began to blossom." (http://kingrene.guice.org/renesales.html).

René I of Anjou thus was a tolerant and open man. He was steeped in esoteric tradition. His court included a wise Jewish astrologer, Cabalist and physician known as Jean de Saint-Remy who was the grandfather of Nostradamus. Also, for some time, René employed the great Italian Admiral, Christopher Columbus. It is of interest that both of Nostradamus' Grandfathers were Court physicians to King René along with the father of Leonardo Da Vinci. 

The origins of the specific ‘Arcadia’ theme that Western culture later adopted and to which Poussin was an heir can in fact be traced back to René. This Arcadian theme of his included an underground stream and a tomb that connoted aspects of a ‘secret tradition’ or elements of a ‘secret knowledge’.  And this ‘Arcadian’ theme was promulgated by artists throughout the Renaissance and beyond. As  René was the source of this particular Arcadian theme, was he therefore the source and perhaps the originator of that enigmatic phrase of Et in Arcadia Ego? For we do know he composed mottos!

If he was the originator of the mysterious 'underground stream' motif, that of 'hidden' knowledge, then what was its importance for him? Was René utilising this 'secret' knowledge or tradition for his own personal reasons? Did he want to present to humanity knowledge unknown to the mass populace by his attempt to encourage collection of all manner of ancient manuscripts through his illustrious connections (e.g the Medici's etc)? 

I think that René was using his theme of Arcadia in a particular way. In the above illustration of a folio page from his well-known work Le Livre du Cueur d'Amours Espris we see 'Cueur is standing in front of the marble slab, gravely reading the inscription which he had not been able to see the night before'. The inscription reads;

Beneath this marble shaft, as black as coal, rises the Spring of Chance.*

He who drinks of it will suffer dire misery.

For this spring was brought forth by the sorcerer Vergil,

who laid  his curse upon it.

A little of its water, poured on this marble  shaft,will instantly unleash a raging storm.

(* La Fontaine de fortune - but fortune/chance in its negative, shifting, treacherous aspects. There are, however, positives to a fountain of water/a spring of chance/fate image - and that is the fountain of redeeming waters - an echo of  “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst,” and "... the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14).  They are the rivers of the Word Himself in John 7:37-39, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink,” said Jesus. ”He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water”). 

Had this river, this spring, accursed by Virgil, been adopted by René for other reasons?

For René the tomb in his idyllic pastoral landscape sits over the 'spring of chance', and running away from the side of the tomb is indeed a kind of channel from which the water flows. This baneful spring flows on to become a brook, a Stream of Tears which Cueur and Desire will encounter repeatedly as they journey onward. The grim inscription, prophesying misery and danger ahead, is the one black note in a painting otherwise expressive only of the radiance of a joyful new morning.

The above inscription on the tomb about a curse brought forth by Virgil on a stream seems to relate to Virgil and his first poem, known as the Eclogues (written 37 B.C.E). In particular Verse 5 which refers to the death of Daphnis:

"For Daphnis cruelly slain wept all the Nymphs-

Ye hazels, bear them witness, and ye streams-

When she, his mother, clasping in her arms, 

The hapless body of the son she bare, 

To gods and stars unpitying, poured her plaint. 

Then, Daphnis, to the cooling streams were none, 

That drove the pastured oxen, then no beast

Drank of the river, or would the grass-blade touch.

Nay, the wild rocks and woods then voiced the roar

Of African lions mourning for thy death.

Daphnis, 'twas thou bad'st yoke to Bacchus' cararmenian tigresses, lead on the pomp

Of revellers, and with tender foliage wreathe

The bending spear-wands. 

As to trees the vineIs crown of glory, as to vines the grape,

Bulls to the herd, to fruitful fields the corn,

So the one glory of thine own art thou.

When the Fates took thee hence, then Pales' self,

And even Apollo, left the country lone.

Where  the plump barley-grain so oft we sowed,

There but wild oats  and barren darnel spring;

For tender violet and narcissus  bright

Thistle and prickly thorn uprear their heads.

Now, O ye shepherds, strew the ground with leaves,

And o'er the fountains draw a shady veil-

So Daphnis to his memory bids be done-

And rear a tomb, and  write thereonthis verse: 

'I, Daphnis in the woods, from  hence in fame 

Am to the stars exalted, guardian once

Of a fair flock, myself more fair than they.'"           

In fact it is made clearer in the preceeding folio about the foul water from this tomb. In the dark of the night the characters had come upon the broad marble slab with a fresh-water spring at its foot and a shallow brass cup on a chain resting on top. They were unable to see the inscription on the tomb because of the night time darkness. Desire takes a drink, then hands the cup to Cueur who, after drinking from it, carelessly lets the rest of the water run down the marble shaft. Instantly the hitherto clear, starry sky grows overcast with  heavy storm-clouds; thunder and lightning, rain and hail come hurtling down on the helpless exposed men, drenching them before they can reach shelter under a trembling aspen tree, they themselves trembling and shivering. The storm ends as suddenly as it began, and the stars shine through the trees once more.  In the folio the men are shown resting, Cueur propped up on his right hand, Desire  leaning on his left elbow, talking over the fright they have just had, before they fall asleep. It is not until the next morning that they will find the solution to this mystery.. The next morning they read the tomb inscription saying the water should not be drunk because it is cursed!    

It is interesting to note that a descendant of Cosimo de Medici patronised Poussin’s good friend Marino. This was Cosimo II de Medici. Cosimo came from a junior line of the Medici family. This family and their artistic connections go even further. Cosimo II was the son of Christina of Lorraine. Through Charles III of Lorraine Christina was descended from René II of Anjou and his maternal grandfather was the very famous René I of Anjou we mentioned above.  As we have been discussing it is to him that we trace the first concept of 'Arcadia' in its modern form. 

It was René who 'broke the monopoly on the ownership and dissemination of thinking. This feat began a program for the advancement of knowledge which changed the course of history right up until the present day.  René, criticised, even threatened by elitists for selling thinking, started the phenomenon we now call the Renaissance. In his own court, René d'Anjou, the prime mover in all this, was leading by his own example. Tolerant and open to a plurality of thinking styles, he was steeped in esoteric tradition. The motifs that we see later - in relation to Arcadian tombs - first appears with Guercino where he is known to have been the first ever painter to use the enigmatic ‘et in arcadia ego…’. There is a link between the paintings of Guercino which were promulgated by Cosimo II de Medici. This Medici commissioned from Guercino ‘Apollo Flaying Marsyas’ in 1618. It is evident in this painting (see below) that Guercino’s later painting ‘Et in arcadia ego’ was a study. The theme of Apollo Flaying Marsyas was a classicising  metaphor of Christ’s sacrifice at the time of Guercino.   

The shepherds watching the flaying of Marsyas are clearly the same two shepherds who stumble upon the tomb labeled 'et in Arcadia ....' [the only difference being the beret is now a red colour!]. 

It is entirely possible that the idea of these Arcadian themes perculiar to René were to be found rooted in the Medici clan as we know that Lorenzo de Medici (1449 –1492), a relative ofCosimo had, in his lifetime, actually set up a group called the 'Shepherds of Arcadia'. It included artists such as Piero and Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Michelangelo Buonarroti - who were involved in the 15th century Renaissance. Although he did not commission many works himself, he helped them secure commissions from other patrons. Michelangelo lived with Lorenzo and his family for five years, dining at the family table and attending meetings of the Neo-Platonic Academy. These connections for René would have been important.

In a twist of concepts Guercino, in his version of the Arcadian Shepherds, may be denoting the tomb of Virgil. Why? Because the skull on the tomb has a fly on it, and rather bizarrely Virgil was associated strongly with flies. In a strangley macabre manner Virgil was attributed with magical powers and it was said that he protected the city of Naples from flies and inflicted upon her enemies plagues of flies. Gervase of Tilbury (born 1150 A.D) was shown some of his (Virgil's) magic spells and said that he  knew of two churches that used them to control flies. Virgil is also supposed to have used a magic fly to control and direct flies. Guercino - using iconography associated with Virgil - then painted a picture of a tomb with a phrase upon it that may have been adopted from a poem of Virgil's about the death of Daphnis.

According to tradition, Daphnis was the son of Hermes [an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods] and a nymph, despite which fact Daphnis himself was mortal even though he was a Son of a God. As an infant, Daphnis' mother exposed him under a laurel tree, where he was found by some herdsmen and named after the tree (Greek daphnē) under which he was found. The cows that tended to him as an infant were said to be sisters to the ones owned by Helios. He was also sometimes said to be Hermes' eromenos (beloved) rather than his son. In some versions, Daphnis was taught how to play the panpipes by the god Pan himself, and eventually the two also became lovers. Daphnis became a follower of the goddess Artemis, accompanying her in hunting and entertaining her with his singing of pastoral songs and playing of the panpipes. A naiad (possibly Echenais or Nomia) was in love with him and prophesied that he would be blinded if he loved another woman. However, he was seduced, with the aid of wine, by the daughter of a king. Daphnis, who endeavoured to console himself by playing the flute and singing herdsmen's songs, soon afterwards died. He fell from a cliff, or was changed into a rock, or was taken up to heaven by his father Hermes, who caused a spring of water to gush out from the spot where his son had been carried off. Ever afterwards the Sicilians offered sacrifices at this spring as an expiatory offering for the youth's early death. There is little doubt that Aelian in his account follows Stesichorus of Himera, who in like manner had been blinded by the vengeance of a woman (Helen) and probably sang of the sufferings of Daphnis in his recantation. Nothing is said of Daphnis's blindness by Theocritus, who dwells on his amour with Nais; his victory over Menalcas in a poetical competition; his love for Xenea brought about by the wrath of Aphrodite; his wanderings through the woods while suffering the torments of unrequited love; his death just at the moment when Aphrodite, moved by compassion, endeavours (but too late) to save him; the deep sorrow, shared by nature and all created things, for his untimely end (Theocritus i. vii. viii.). A later form of the legend identifies Daphnis with a Phrygian hero, and makes him the teacher of Marsyas. Here we see the themes of Guercino! 

“They say that (Athena) was the first to fashion a flute out of deer-bone. She came to the gods’ banquet table to play it, but (Hera) and (Aphrodite) made fun of her because she turned blue and puffed out her cheeks.”Athena ran to a forest and tried to play it again by herself. Suddenly she caught her reflection in a stream and realised that her fellow goddesses were right. “There was every reason for them to poke fun at her,” wrote Hyginus. Athena got so upset that she threw out the flute and cursed it. The curse would severely punish anyone who picks up the flute. The satyr Marsyas found the discarded instrument and learned how to play it. Marsyas became so skilled in flute playing that he challenged Apollo, the god of music to a musical duel! It was judged by the Muses and King Midas (who later got the golden touch). The terms of the duel stated that the winner could treat the defeated side any way he wanted. First, Marsyas played such a wild and coaxing tune that the birds hopped from the trees to get near, the animals came up closer, and the trees swayed as if they wanted to dance. Then, all living creatures started dancing wildly, and Midas thought it was the sweetest music in the world. When it got to his turn, Apollo rose, holding a golden lyre in his hands. He touched the strings of the lyre, and suddenly the music mesmerised them all. Never before gods or mortals heard anything as beautiful and emotional as Apollo’s music. The wild creatures stood still, the trees kept every leaf from rustling, and the earth and air went utterly silent. When Apollo stopped playing, it took some time for the spell of his music to break. Finally, the listeners fell at Apollo’s feet and proclaimed him the winner. All but Midas, who alone would not admit that the music was better than Marsyas. “If thine ears are so dull, mortal,” said Apollo, “they shall take the shape that best suits them.” Apollo touched the ears of Midas, and they turned into the donkey ears. However, several versions tell us more about how it all went at the end. The most notable are found in Diodorus Siculus’ Library of History, Hyginus’ Fabulae, 165, Pseudo-Apollodorus’ Bibliotheke i.4.2, and Pliny’s Natural History 16.89. According to Hyginus, Marsyas was departing as the victor after the first round, when Apollo turned his lyre upside down and played the same tune. Marsyas could not do with his flute, so he succumbed. According to Diodorus Siculus, who admired Marsyas for his intelligence and self-control, he was defeated when Apollo started singing along playing the lyre. Marsyas protested, arguing that it is not fair because he can’t sing while playing the flute. However, Apollo replied that by blowing into the flute, Marsyas was doing almost the same thing himself. Thus, the Muses supported Apollo and announced his victory. Yet another version states that Marsyas played the flute out of tune! Out of shame, he accepted the defeat and Apollo’s punishment, which was absolutely cruel. Apollo had the satyr strung up by a tree and flayed alive. The legends describe how his skin was nailed to a pine tree and moved joyfully when a flute was played".

The Greek poet Theocritus writes his poem about Daphnis which takes the form of a dialogue between two rustics in a pastoral setting. Thyrsis meets a goatherd in a shady place beside a spring, and at his invitation sings the story of Daphnis. This ideal hero of Greek pastoral song had won for his bride the fairest of the Nymphs. Confident in the strength of his passion, he boasted that Love could never subdue him to a new affection. Love avenged himself by making Daphnis desire a strange maiden, but to this temptation he never yielded, and so died a constant lover. The song tells how the cattle and the wild things of the wood bewailed him, how Hermes and Priapus gave him counsel in vain, and how with his last breath he retorted the taunts of Aphrodite. He bequeaths his pipe to Pan, ends his dying speech with an address to all Nature, and is overwhelmed at last in the river of Death [that is, the Acheron which also features prominently in Greek mythology, where it is often depicted as the entrance to the Greek Underworld where souls must be ferried across by Charon. Virgil's Fifth Eclogue contains two songs sung by herdsmen, one lamenting the death of Daphnis, and the other celebrating his acceptance into heaven as a god.

King René and Tombs 

René himself is known to have excavated for a particular tomb. He was in this respect carrying on a 'family tradition' because in 1279 Charles II of Anjou, King of Naples was responsible for finding the alleged grave of Mary Magdalene at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume. When he found it he founded the massive Gothic Basilique Ste. Marie-Madeleine in 1295; the basilica had the blessing of Pope Boniface VIII, who placed it under the new teaching order of Dominicans. It is famously reported that Rene also had a red porphyry cup which he told people was used at the wedding of Cana. This cup also had associations with Mary Magdalene. The whole Anjou dynasty had adopted Mary Magdalene as their very extra special saint, probably since Charles of Anjou had found her tomb in the 13th century. She was thought to protect this dynasty because as Counts of Provence they also protected the land that she, in legend, came to and evangelised.

The scholar Ludwig Jansen even wonders why the Anjou dynasty had such a bizarre and obsessive love for the Saint. Jansen offered two sources of transmission. The first is via Charles of Anjou and his mother, Beatrice of Provence. Perhaps, Ludwig Jansen speculated, Beatrice traced her family back to the legendary ruler of Provence converted by Mary Magdalene, thus emphasising to her son her family's links to apostolic Christianity. Does this mean more or less for Jansen that the family had inside information about the legends of the Saint and the ruler of Provence? Later, René would claim to have many relics associated with Mary Magdalene. For example, in the cathedral in Angers he donated a font which he believed Mary Magdalene had used to baptise the pagan rulers of Provence. He also donated an 'urn' which he had been assured Christ used at the wedding of Cana to change water into wine and which had been transported to Provence by Mary Magdalene.

Family and pedigree seem to be something René was obsessed with. René always seemed to be linking Grail Mythology and the legends of King Arthur to bloodlines and his bloodline. To him these genealogies played an important role. The importance was France were a ‘chosen people’ and the land of France was a holy land. French kings claimed descent from the Trojans and therefore the Romans. The Kings and Queens demonstrated a ‘sacred kingship’ and their descent went back to kings who had also possessed a ‘divine right’ to rule. As well as having the ‘divine right’ to rule the French monarchy adhered to the legends that France contained the ancient tribes of Israel (as does Britain). They claimed specific descent from Francus of Troy and that Troy, that great city of the Trojans, according to some Greek historians, was founded by the Arcadians. The French king also claimed descent from the Sicambrians, that is, the Merovingian priest kings. The academic Bernstock continues saying that the French king simultaneously  ‘equated with shepherds, Christ, Moses and David, who were all shepherd kings, classical gods and heroes and also Roman Emporers’'. All this loaded symbolism over centuries could arguably be tied up in the theme of the paintings of the Arcadian Shepherds and its motto. 

This obsession with 'true blood' can be gleaned from a work by Shakespeare. It is in HENRY V ACT I - SCENE II.

Before discussing it there is a commentary given by  C. Preston Guice. He says:
"Shakespeare even as a playright was considered by some a student of history. A few considered him more enlightened than his historian counterparts and yet many feel that Shakespeare could not have had the opportunity or ability to achieve  such knowledge. Although I wish to remain neutral in this "conflict of credit", it  is my humble opinion that, between the two, only Christopher Marlowe could have and would have surely been privey to the knowledge penned in the following discourses of "Henry the Fifth". Marlowe was apparently associated with the secret fraternal brotherhoods that relied upon this particular version of history. This, being the organization which René D'Anjou was the leader from 1418 till his death in 1481. René was the Duke of Lorraine although the Duke of Lorraine referred to is René's Father-in-Law who preceded him. It should also be noted here that René's daughter married Henry VI and became deeply involved  in the War of the Roses...."

And what is this inside information, in the Shakespeare play, which involved the House of Anjou? It is as follows:
"CANTERBURY: Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers, That owe yourselves, your lives and services To this imperial throne. There is no bar To make against your highness' claim to France But this, which they produce from Pharamond, 'In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant: ''No woman shall succeed in Salique land:' Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze To be the realm of France, and Pharamond, The founder of this law and female bar. Yet their own authors faithfully affirm That the land Salique is in Germany, Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe; Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons, There left behind and settled certain French; Who, holding in disdain the German women For some dishonest manners of their life, Establish'd then this law; to wit, no  female Should be inheritrix in Salique land: Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt  Elbe and Sala, Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen. Then doth it well appear that Salique law Was not devised for the realm of France: Nor did the French possess the Salique land Until four hundred one and twenty years After  defunction of King Pharamond, Idly supposed the founder of this law; Who died within the year of our redemption Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French Beyond the river Sala, in the year Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say, King Pepin,  which deposed Childeric, Did, as heir general, being descended Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair, Make claim and title to the crown of France. Hugh Capet also, who usurped the crown Of Charles the duke of Lorraine, sole heir male Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great, To  find his title with some shows of truth, 'Through, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught, Convey'd himself as heir to the Lady Lingare, Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth, Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,  Could not keep quiet in his conscience, Wearing the crown of France, till  satisfied That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother, Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare, Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorraine: By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great Was re-united to the crown of  France. So that, as clear as is the summer's sun. King Pepin's title and Hugh Capet's claim, King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear To hold in right and title of the female: So do the kings of France unto this day; Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law To bar your highness claiming from the  female, And rather choose to hide them in a net Than amply to imbar their crooked titles Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.
KING HENRY V: May I with right and conscience make this claim?
CANTERBURY: The sin upon my head, dread sovereign! For in the book of Numbers is it writ, When the man dies, let the inheritance Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord, Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag; Look back into your mighty ancestors: Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb, From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit, And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince, Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy, Making defeat on the full power of France, Whiles his most mighty father on a hill Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp Forage in blood of French nobility. O noble English that could entertain With half their forces the full Pride of France And let another half stand laughing by, All out of work and cold for action! (http://kingrene.guice.org/henryv.html).

This particular 'story' of the early ancestry of the House of Anjou, which promoted that the true line and legitimate line of Charles the Great was Charles of Lorraine, a line that Hugh Capet had usurped reminded me of another link in this family affair and was linked to Pierre Plantard mythology in a bizarre way!

Camille Bartoli (a French author) had written a book about the identity of the ‘Man In The Iron Mask’. I had chanced upon the work of this Bartoli quite by accident. Because there was a reference in the 1982 book  ‘Holy Blood & Holy Grail’ about this 'Man in the Iron Mask' i had been researching all the theories about this Iron Mask character. Lincoln et al had suggested that the Iron Mask could have been Nicolas Fouquet. Fouquet's incarceration had occurred after he had received the famous letter from Abbe Louis Fouquet, his brother, in which he discussed his meeting with Nicolas Poussin in Rome. In this letter it was detailed that through Poussin his brother could discover a monumental secret and consequently Fouquet was incarcerated and became the legendary Iron Mask! 

Bartoli's work was an appraisal of all the theories ever advanced about the identity of the real historical Iron Mask prisoner.  In his book Bartoli discusses his meeting with an elderly and distinguished gentleman at the Hotel Negresco in Nice. The gentleman, known simply as Monsieur G, offers to tell Bartoli ‘the secret’ of the Iron Mask on one condition - that he publish it. Monsieur G told Bartoli that the conspiracy involving the Iron Mask was created by ‘secret’ members of the ‘Order of the Temple’. This, he said, was a ‘clandestine’ organisation which survived the Knights Templar after their demise in 1307.  Monsieur G himself claimed to be a member of this ‘secret order’. He explained:
‘ ….The secret that the Templars of the 17th century were seeking, as were the Templar knights before them, was to impose their ‘grand design’ upon the world, a political and religious system to unify  all nations and sects …….’.
Monsieur G then went on to detail the first part of this ‘grand design’ of the secret Templars. It involved the re-instatement of the legitimate French monarchy and this monarchy was identified as those Frankish kings –the Merovingian's – who Monsieur G added ‘were kings by right of birth’. All dynasties which followed after – the Capetian's, the Valois and the Bourbon were said to be illegitimate. It was re-iterated: ‘The crown of France belonged by divine right to the descendants of Charles de  Lorraine, who was the true heir when Capet usurped the throne at the end of the 10th century’. René was indeed of the line of this deposed Charles de Lorraine. 

It is of interest that a motto painted on to a tomb painted by Guercino and later Poussin may reveal something about a history of a divine tomb, perhaps of a particular bloodline, that concerned René. Some feel the Poussin painting is connected to Rennes-le-Chateau because, of course, long before Sauniere, Boudet had published a book about a divine tomb in the vicinity of Rennes-les-Bains. Divine because this tomb he associated with a dolmen associated with a resurrection!    

So it seems that this 'Underground Tradition' for René could have been many things. Something pertaining to his bloodline, a bloodline that really was illustrious. This bloodline included members of the early Capetian dynasty, Carolingians, Visigthic nobility but mainly it was the usurped line of the original Merovingian's who were important in this bloodline. The 'Underground Tradition' also quite clearly meant 'lost and hidden knowledge' with which he engaged such families as the Sforza and Medici to open libraries to house manuscripts and ancient knowledge. These people actively promoted the seeking out of manuscripts - which eventually led to the Renaissance. But this possible 'underground tradition' seems to have affected the whole Anjou dynasty. They were obsessed with locating the last resting place of Mary Magdalene and in some cases persisted in their own knowledge of its whereabouts, even in the face of strong challenges from elsewhere. And later, we find René doing exactly the same, excavating and looking for tombs. An ancester of his had already discovered Mary Magdalene so who was René searching for? 

It seems then that this 'underground stream' was symbolic for certain information and family knowledge or perhaps even a discovery (whether literally, or from knowledge gained). Information which was esoteric and unseen, just like the subterranean river Alpheus in the geographical Arcadia. What René did was take the motif of the tomb and a stream in Arcadia and the Virgil poem and mold it to reflect his own interests and his own esoteric knowledge. It is to his ancestry, his activities and interests that i think this esoteric knowledge lies. And this is reflected in his excavations, his bloodline and his fusing of all of this with the Holy Grail and chivalrous knights, which Preston-Guice had described as being the organization which René D'Anjou was the leader from 1418 till his death in 1481. 

All this kind of mish-mash of information would make the Plantard 'Priory of Sion' smile. For these themes are most certainly advanced via the Priory 'propaganda'! And René of Anjou is even asserted to have been a 'helmsman' of this fabled Priory of Sion Secret Society - linked by them to the affair at Rennes-le-Chateau. The question is this - is it all based on some as yet unseen 'truth' or is it just mystification for the pleasure of mystifying from those master pranksters?

The next founder of an Arcadian Academy is the one set up by Lorenzo the Magnificent, the protagonists of the fifteenth-century Florentine Renaissance as a client, writer and poet. He surrounded himself with a cultured and elegant environment composed of consultants, teachers, writers, architects and artists. He marked the culture and art of his time by promoting the figurative, literary and musical arts within the framework of a political design that orbited personal and family power. 

This ’Shepherds of Arcadia’ society created by Lorenzo de Medici (1449 - 1492) consisted of painters and poets that Lorenzo surrounded himself with at his villa. Lorenzo's court included artists such as Piero and Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Filippino Lippi, and Michelangelo Buonarroti - all were involved in the 15th century Renaissance. Although Lorenzo did not commission many works himself, he helped artists secure commissions from other patrons. Michelangelo lived with Lorenzo and his family for several years, dining at the family table and attending meetings of the Neo-Platonic Academy, and participating on conversations led by Marsilio Ficino. We have read above that Cosimo de Medici as a relative of Lorenzo de Medici had started the collection of books which later became the Medici Library and which led to a new flourishing in learning and which broke the hold the Catholic Church had over teaching. Lorenzo's agents copied Cosimo, & retrieved from the East large numbers of classical works. He employed a large workshop to copy his books and disseminate their content across Europe. He supported the development of humanism through his circle of scholarly friends  including the philosophers Marsilio Ficino, Poliziano and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. They studied Greek philosophers and attempted to merge the ideas of Plato with Christianity. The philosophers Marsilio Ficino is now thought to be behind, in a new theory, the Tarot de Marseille which carries esoteric knowledge. Lorenzo was an artist in his own right and wrote poetry in his native Tuscan. In his poetry, he celebrates life while acknowledging with melancholy the fragility and instability of the human condition, particularly in his later works. Love, feasts and light dominate his verse as well as the theme of Arcadia. Cosimo had started the collection of books that became the Medici Library (also called the Laurentian Library), and Lorenzo expanded it.

Cosimo de' Medici used his personal fortune to sponsor orators, poets and philosophers, as well as a series of artistic accomplishments noted for his patronage of culture and the arts during the Renaissance. He was a patron and confidante of Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, and Donatello, whose famed David and Judith Slaying Holofernes were Medici commissions. In 1444, Cosimo de' Medici founded the first public library in Florence, at San Marco, which was of central importance to the humanist movement in Florence during the Renaissance. It was designed by Michelozzo, a student of Lorenzo Ghiberti who later collaborated with Donatello and was also a good friend and patron to Cosimo. After being introduced to humanism by a group of literati who had asked for his help in preserving books, he grew to love the movement and gladly sponsored the effort to renew Greek and Roman civilization through literature, for which book collecting was a central activity. "Heartened by the romantic wanderlust of a true bibliophile, the austere banker even embarked on several journeys in the hunt for books, while guaranteeing just about any undertaking that involved books. He financed trips to nearly every European town as well as to Syria, Egypt, and Greece organized by Poggio Bracciolini, his chief book scout." He engaged 45 copyists under the bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci to transcribe manuscripts and paid off the debts of Niccolò de' Niccoli after his death in exchange for control over his collection of some 800 manuscripts valued at around 6,000 florins. These manuscripts that Cosimo acquired from Niccoli would later be the cornerstone of the Laurentian Library, a library in Florence founded by Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo de' Medici. In the realm of philosophy, Cosimo, influenced by the lectures of Gemistus Plethon, supported Marsilio Ficino and his attempts at reviving Neo-Platonism. Cosimo commissioned Ficino's Latin translation of the complete works of Plato (the first ever complete translation) and collected a vast library that he shared with intellectuals such as Niccolò de' Niccoli and Leonardo Bruni. He also established a Platonic Academy in Florence in 1445.

King René devoted his talent to decoration:  painting emblems, arms, mottos, hunting scenes and rustic scenes and he spoke Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian and Catalan. He played and composed music, wrote poems, was interested in theology, astronomy, mathematics and medicine. He was also particularly interested in geography and in the law. Were all his interests and activities correlated in some way? 

Some 100 years after René the idea of Arcadia appeared again with the work of the poet Sannazaro. It was also picked up by Sir Philip Sydney – a hugely popular figure of Tudor  England. Sir Philip Sidney was closely related and/or friends with Sir Francis Bacon. And Bacon also promulgated the imagery of Arcadia as did his friend John Dee.  

Francis Bacon and Arcadia

It’s interesting to note that Bacon used imagery in exactly the same way as René of Anjou. 

This was the linking of the Grail Mythology and the legends of King Arthur. But why would he instigate an Arcadian theme? Perhaps the arcadia motto used by artists was really, as Oliviero, nothing to do with any geographical arcadia, but a specific piece of knowledge? It is known that René was a latter day archaeologist, searching for the real tomb of Mary Magdalene or perhaps her companions on any legendary boat crossing to France. We know an ancestor of René did actually claim to have found the sepulchre of Mary Magdalene. Perhaps René found something else and this is the origin of all the symbolism to be found associated with Arcadia, tombs and secret knowledge?    It does seem to suggest a coherent picture when we realise that the de Joyeuse family who owned land at Arques and elsewhere in the vicinity of Rennes-le-Château. Henrietta de Joyeuse's second husband Charles de Lorraine was a descendant of this René de Anjou via Yolande of Lorraine and as we have seen, it is René who expounded the early modern concept of Arcadia. 

Poussin is linked to Henrietta de Joyeuse because between 1638 and 1642, he had as his most leading patrons those of Richelieu and Sublet de Noyers. These two patrons repeatedly came to the defence of Henrietta de Joyeuse in her family struggles with the Crown. Bernstock even suggests that Poussin received his ideas regarding the iconography of the Shepherds of Arcadia via Chantelou’s (a great friend of Poussin) cousin, Sublet de Noyers. This Sublet de Noyers was also a protector of Poussin in Paris. Poussin corresponded with Sublet and Sublet was in regular correspondence with Henriette-Catherine de Joyeuse. The so called 'Poussin Tomb' linked to the affair of Rennes-le-Château is also known as the Tomb at Arques - a tomb alleged to have been present for Poussin to paint when he visited the area. Recent research shows however that the tomb in Arques appeared only very recently - strangely during the time of Berenger Sauniere. It is not known if any prior tomb or marker had been present at the same site in the preceding centuries. However, Plantard says "the question then is not whether Poussin actually came and painted the landscape of Rennes-le-Chateau - but whether in his painting 'Shepherds of Arcadia' a secret pertaining to Rennes-le-Chateau was being concealed".       

In England Francis Bacon used the image of a shepherd piercing a viper with a spear. The texts describe the viper stinging the shepherd while he slept. This shepherd was associated with Apollo, the God of poetic inspiration and illumination. Once again this was a theme used by both Bacon and Poussin. The closeness of the artistic works of Bacon and Poussin are uncanny, Poussin via painting and Bacon via his writing. Is it possible that the two were somehow linked in the same objectives? 

Dawkins has several times suggested to me (in private correspondence) that Bacon knew about the secret ‘matter of France’ and that he had access to a monumental secret of France. Indeed via the family of the Joyeuses we think Francis Bacon and Poussin may have known each other. Henrietta - Catherine de Joyeuse remarried in 1611 Charles de Lorraine, fourth Duke of Guise. Her first marriage had been to Henri de Bourbon. Their daughter Marie Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier married Gaston Jean-Baptiste, Duc de Orleans. He was a son of Henry IVth & Marie de Medici. Gaston himself married later Marguerite, a daughter of Charles IVth & their daughter went on to marry Cosimo III de Medici. One can see a pattern of inter-relationship here between the Medici clan and the families whose ancestry goes back to Good King René, originator of the Arcadian symbolism later used by Poussin. Poussin also moved in these circles of influence. The reason I refer to the Joyeuse family so much is not only that the so called Arcady tomb was on their land, not only did Poussin have close links with this family but it is also almost certain that Bacon knew the Joyeuses. Dawkins says that Bacon himself may have attended the Joyeuse Magnificences held when the Duc de Joyeuse married Marie De Lorraine.  Art historians have also noted that Poussin must have been aware of the work of Francis Bacon's writing on hieroglyphics. Poussin himself is said to have been fascinated with hieroglyphics. But that Poussin knew of Bacon is also shown in letters of Cassiano dal Pozzo. We have already seen that Cassiano was a great friend of Poussin. And it was Cassiano, while he was in Paris as a member of the entourage of Francesco Barberini, that he wrote to the secretary of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome to recommend that Francis Bacon be preposed as a member of that society. He said "I have just received a book by an author whom, if he did not live in England, I would like to make every effort to have among us; he is the very one whose SAGGI MORALI & DE SAPIENTA VETERUM I published, Francis Bacon, who a short while ago put out a work called ‘On the Dignity and the Advancement of Sciences’  a most notable work which gives much of profit for the advancement of speculation in all of the sciences’.  

Bacon himself is often said to have been the Father CRC of the Rosicrucians. Some suggest that he composed the first two Rosicrucian Manifestos. There is much circumstantial evidence to support this statement. Poussin may have developed a friendship with Naudé. Naudé is himself associated with the Rosicrucians. When the furore concerning the Rosicrucians swept Paris in 1623 Poussin was actually living in Paris. He was staying in the Luxembourg Palace and was completing commissions there. Frances Yates in her seminal work ‘The Rosicrucian Enlightment’ refers to Naudé reporting about the events surrounding the Rosicrucians. Apparently, Naudé said, placards appeared in Paris announcing the presence of the Brethren of the Rose Cross. Naudé also reports in his publication that the Brethren had had a meeting in Lyon to discuss their launch. This places Poussin in the town probably at the same time these Rosicrucians were planning their assaults and Manifestos [Poussin lived in Lyon for 3 years]. Is it possible that Poussin may have mixed with these individuals? Was Lyon, in Poussin’s day a medium sized town, where most intellectuals and artists would have been aware of each other? I think it is entirely possible. Naudé talks as an informed person – even at this early stage. He quotes at length from the Fama Fraternitus. Naudé gives a list of authors who represent the kind of teachings that the Rosicrucians wished to teach. They were John Dee, Trithemius, Ramon Lull and Paracelsus.  Naudé like Poussin was an antiquarian and scholar. It is highly likely that they knew each other. It is highly likely that their circle of friends were the same figures of this intellectual and artistic society. 

According to Bernstock, McTigh indicated that: ‘Poussin’s landscape paintings of the 1640’s reflect the political  and social thinking of the libertines’. These libertine [read Rosicrucian] ‘landscape’ allegories and images focussed around ‘Arcadia’ and the ‘Golde Age’ and ‘Saturn’.  And in fact this libertine movement in France was a branch of the same movement seen elsewhere in Europe. For example the Baconian led Reformation in England of the arts and sciences which also used the imagery of 'Arcadia, the Golden Age and Saturn’. The art and poems which were written in this period seemed to emanate from small groups of people who were rich and of the nobility. Their same objectives echoed the Rosicrucian ideals and Manifestos. Was Poussin then, a free thinker in the vein of these movements?  Bernstock has suggested that "Poussin chose to copy and investigate antique models to illustrate his  political objectives’, and that he then illustrated this in his paintings. Further "Poussin used classical mythology to bolster modern political  ideaology’. This sounds incredible. Is it possible, as one researcher suggested that the  ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’ was the visual equivalent of a history book? 

Poussin and Bacon adopted the ‘pun’ art of language. In this priest Henri Boudet would follow in his book LA VRAI LANGUE CELTIQUE about a hidden tomb in Rennes-les0Bains. The ideas stemmed from an interest in the Egyptian hieroglyphs where both Poussin & Bacon, in their time, thought that ‘pictures’ were used to embody concepts, ideas and language. McTigh even suggests that Poussin wanted to use hieroglyphics to convey a ‘political  message’. In 1662 Claude-Francois Menestrier would, according to Bernstock, identify three types  of painted enigma adopted by Poussin. These were:    

•     1) The story hidden under symbols     

•    2) The story hiding natural properties of things &      

•    3)  the rebus consisting of a single word represented by diverse things. 

As Bernstock goes on to say: ‘Menestrier posits that postures of figures and colours of clothing conceal the meaning of the first two types. He ordains that the rebus can represent a single word, an entire sentence, or as he states in another context, either of two words; the word must be trivial, a commonplace object symbolised  through an elevated image. He also stresses that the painting should seem sufficient according to its explicit meaning but that some symbol should inform the viewer that an additional significance lies with in’.        

Bacon himself turned to the hieroglyphics as a language of ‘science’. In his writings Bacon  ‘seriously considered hieroglyphics as a possible form of notation for the modern experimental sciences’. Bacon's interest was with the esoteric method of communication and it took the form of constant playing with figures, fables, aphorisms and secret ciphers of all kinds. Preface's in his published work's show that he preferred to read fables as allegories twisting them to serve the purpose of the alchemists and the philosophers. He wanted to overhaul the fables, allegories and make them embody new knowledge. 

Bacon was suggesting a new system of coded characters. Bacon wanted to create a ‘universal language’.  These works were much appreciated by Poussin’s patrons and by extension I suggest, by Poussin himself. Poussin later on did indeed use the notion of the hieroglyph in his painted works.  This appears to have been in the adoption of the idea of ‘saturn’. Poussin probably alludes to the ‘faineant’ associated with the second race of Merovingians (an interesting turn of phrase used by Bernstock – what does she mean by the second race of Merovingians?) as a lesson for the shepherd in red in ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’. In ancient thought, Saturn could produce kings, rulers and founders of cities, as well as philosophers, soothsayers, mathematicians, geometricians and astrologers. Saturn also held the knowledge of things that were hidden or secret. The whole iconography was based on the myth of the Golden Age and Saturn’s banishment to the underworld. Saturn was a Roman god of crops and this Saturn was merged with thee Greek god Kronos who was the god of agriculture.  

Bernstock suggests that the often quoted point that Rospigliosi was behind the Shepherds of Arcadia cannot be true & she actually thinks that Rospigliosi played an important role in the ‘conceit’ behind the Chatsworth version of ‘ET IN ARCADIA EGO’ only. She quotes Blunt as her source for her idea –  because Blunt says that an inventory of paintings taken by the Palazzo Rospigliosi (date?) shows that the ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’ is not listed, and was probably never owned by Rospigliosi. The name of Henry AVICE comes up. According to  Loménie de Brienne, a ‘Mr Avisse’ was the chevalier Henri Avice and he owned ‘Et In Arcadia  Ego’ (that is – the ‘Shepherds of Arcadia). Avice in 1643 was ‘ingénieur’ of the king’s army. He is also known to have been an amateur engraver. Some of his engravings have some of the iconography later found in the ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’ painting.     Bernstock speculates that as Avice was in the Kings Army and went with him on campaigns to the south of France and because Louis was known to have ‘taken the waters’ at Rennes-les-Bains could Avice have sketched tombs and  inscriptions and sent them or shown them to Poussin? Bernstock asks - if he sent information to Poussin may it have included his work as a map-maker and the positioning of a tentative zero Meridian?

Bellori suggests that Rospigliosi gave to Poussin already an interest in language. He may have learnt from his friend and patron about poetry, conceits, librettos and operas, all of which Rospigliosi was known to have written and championed in others. Rospigliosi had many links with literary characters and talents and for example was aware of Shakespeare. Poussin may himself have been aware of this literature and ‘new’ language propounded by Shakespeare via his old friend Marino as we read above. Marino also knew the work of Herbert of Cherbury and Thomas Carew and he may have known them through the French court.  All these artists and writers which include all the names I have mentioned in this article, as well as Poussin and Bacon himself guarded, a kind of ‘sacred tradition’ about ‘shepherds’ & ‘arcadia’.  Panofsky makes mention of Lorenzo de Medici and his circle of poets at the Villa Medici known as the ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’. Francis Bacon had as one of his laudable aims to re-invigorate and start anew the English language. Richelieu was doing the same on the French side. Bernstock says: ‘Historians have long recognised that Poussins interest in language  paralleled the preoccupation of the Académie Français, and along with it, inspired the ‘verbal mystique’ surrounding French painting as it …. Became  fiercely lingustic’. Are we supposed to ‘hear’ Poussin’s paintings as well as to ‘see’ them? Again according to Bernstock Poussin:  ‘Created specific word games which are meaningful analogies’.  We have already looked at the rebus and the false hieroglyphic (as some scholars call it) and suggested that Poussin through the ‘punning’ language was intimating a lot more was involved in ‘decoding’ his paintings. 

According to Francis Bacon, who used cipher writing, there were six main ciphers and one method which included the anagrammatic as well as the important hieroglyphic cipher of pictorial method including mathematical and musical symbolism and the word cipher.  Whereas Bacon employed various ciphers in his writing did Poussin use the symbol or hieroglyphic cipher? To some scholars he certainly did.  Bernstock suggests another image of Poussins, that of Apollo and the Muses (or ‘Parnassus). She thinks this was Poussin's way of signifying the ‘regeneration of the arts and letters’. These groups modelled themselves on Parnassus. Bacon uses the exact same symbolism. He in fact used to call himself Apollo. Bacon set up his own Arcadian Academy (and other artistic and scientific ‘secret’ groups) and made their base at Parnassus. 

Bacon refers directly to Pegasus, Apollo and Parnassus. 

Sir Philip Sidney was known as the ‘High Constable of Parnassus’. They were members of the Englsih Areopagus, formed in the days of Queen Elisabeth the first. Later, Michael Maier (a supporter of the Rosicrucians) in his Themis Aurea says that the Temple of the Rosy Cross is located ‘beside the spring of Helicon on double-peaked Parnassus’. 

Poussin is also alleged to have practised within his painting ‘word games’ and ‘punning’ which required a certain way of looking at the paintings to ‘decode’ them. Does the ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’ encod a specific area in France through the ‘looking at’ of the painting and through the ‘hearing’ of the painting.   Avice – owner and another mooted patron of ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’ was known to be a map – maker & may have known of tentative calculations for a possible zero Meridian on that land owned by the Joyeuses. 

Bernstock herself suggests that Poussin seems to be ‘fixing’ a line in his painting – describing thus: ‘… (a) sunrise line from Rennes to Arques church cuts the Paris (zero) Meridian exactly where it intersects the line from the tomb to Rennes-le-Bains’.  She suggests that Poussin is indicating the location of the zero meridian near or at the centre of a/the tomb (in the painting of the Shepherds of Arcadia).  Why?  

Perhaps, in line with Oliviero’s supposition that Poussin is marking a ‘divine tomb’ that he and other initiates have perhaps been privy to witness? A tomb associated with all this fish mash of Arcadian imagery of utopias, eden, resurrecting Gods, Virgil all the way down to Rene d'Anjou? Is this tomb to be found in the vicinity of Rennes-les-Bains? Is it associated with a Meridian? 

Yes, it is. In fact the so called esoteric Rose Line meridian. Recently I came across this:

"Vi Marriott mentions in her article “A Lost Page Recovered?” that Philippe de Chérisey likely had knowledge of Elizabethan playwrights. ... [it] started some wheels turning in my head.  I note that the dramatist Thomas Lodge (c. 1558 to 1625) wrote Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie, printed in 1590, which was used as the basis for Shakespeare’s As You Like It.  Both plays have been called “Arcadian” in the pastoral romance sense of shepherds and shepherdesses. Lodge’s Rosalynde was written on his voyage to the Canary Islands, which locale de Chérisey used as the background for most of the action in his novel Circuit and he apparently wrote several articles relating to the Canaries which are in The Secret Archives of the Priory of Sion. The connection with the Canary Islands is that, like the French Meridian “Rose Line”, the Canaries were also once the site of a meridian, and the west-most island of El Hierro is also called Isla del Meridiano (Island of the Meridian). Lodge’s Rosalynde took place in the Ardennes forest where Dagobert II was assassinated, though Shakespeare turned it into the Forest of Arden where there was a preceptory of the Knights Templar until the order was suppressed in 1312. It has been suggested that Shakespeare’s Arden was a combination of the classical “Arcadia” and the Biblical “Eden”.  I notice on the first page of Lodge’s Rosalynd, he mentions “Sir IOHN (that with the Phenix knewe the tearme of his life was now expyred, and could with the Swanne discouer his end by her songs)” which is similar to the Swan’s song Charlot and Anne speak of in the “Lost Page”.  Perhaps others with a greater knowledge of Elizabethan playwrights than I could think of anything else that might relate". 

This is a good time to mention the issue of the Rose Line Meridian. 

In Cherisey's novel CIRCUIT he mentions many times certain motifs related to wells, and the contexts they are found in are astonishing. 

"First there is a connection made between MERIDIANS and TOMBS. Quote:The Garoé affair took on cosmic proportions in 1637 when Louis XIII, the King of France, impatient with the disagreements amongst geographers regarding the placement of the 0 meridian, decreed that no map should be published in his kingdom which did not feature as a marker the lime tree of Valverde. An astonishing conflict broke out between the Spanish and the French regarding the nature of the marker. The fact that the King of France was going to situate the beginning of his world in a foreign land flattered the Spanish but made them wonder if by chance Louis XIII was using this to claim the Canary Islands. On the other hand, the French were wondering to what extent the ownership of the marker would bring about the domination of the polar vertical, if they had an interest in the material existence of the lime tree or in its abstract nature. Louis XIV who succeeded Louis XIII concluded the conflict in a threatening way. "The Pyrenees no longer exist!" Led by Thomas Corneille, French poets disputed the material existence of the lime tree, only seeing it as an abstract reference marker, while Spanish poets held to the conclusions of Monsignor Camara y Murgua and Father de Abreù Galindo. Politicians appeared just as perplexed as the poets, as shown by the decision of the Governor of the Canaries to pull out the last roots of Garoé and throw them into the wells of Temijiragua, also situated on the zero meridian and which were supposed to contain the sepulchre and the treasure of Sertorius, the happy rival of Pompey the Great.

How to bring the 0 meridian to France without acting against his father wishes, posed a big problem for Louis XIV. Charles Perrault the poet architect solved it in a very ingenious manner by literally translating the Spanish Valverde into the French Vauvert. Well known to the Parisians, the cellars of 'the Devil Vauvert' served as the basement of the Paris Observatory which from then on marked the French nationalised 0 meridian. An additional advantage was that the cellars of the Devil Vauvert marked the placement of Robert le Forts' Castel, ancestor of the Capetians. As for the Observatory itself, it must not be considered simply as a place where the Earth contemplated the stars but a centre where the Sun king could shine over the Earth".

Wikipedia quote regarding El Hierro that:

El Hierro was known in European history as the prime meridian in common use outside of the future British Empire. Already in the 2nd century A.D., Ptolemy considered a definition of the zero meridian based on the western-most position of the known world, giving maps with only positive (eastern) longitudes. In the year 1634, France ruled by Louis XIII and Richelieu decided that Ferro's meridian should be used as the reference on maps, since this island was considered the most western position of the Old World. (Flores Island lies further west, but the Azores were not discovered by Europeans until the early 15th century, and their identification as part of the Old World is uncertain.) It was thought to be exactly 20 degrees west of the Paris meridian, so indeed the exact position of Ferro was never considered. Old maps (outside of Anglo-America) often have a common grid with Paris degrees at the top and Ferro degrees offset by 20 at the bottom. Louis Feuillée also worked on this problem in 1724 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Hierro]. 

In the Canary Islands we notice that the former 0 Meridian was marked by the tomb of Sertorius (from the Temijiragua well). Which strengthens the hypothesis that the true France Meridian is marked by a tomb. In this case the tomb of the Grand Roman. The struggle for the monopoly over the line of the reference MERIDIAN was fierce between different countries like Spain-France and later Great Britain. Cherisey associates this dispute with the rivality between Pompey and Sertorius. Louis XIVth absolutely wanted the 0 Meridian to be on french soil, despite his fathers wishes, Louis the XIIIth, who would have prefered to leave the oficial Meridian on spanish soil: Louis XIII, the King of France, impatient with the disagreements amongst geographers regarding the placement of the 0 meridian, decreed that no map should be published in his kingdom which did not feature as a marker the lime tree of Valverde. [...]Louis XIV who succeeded Louis XIII concluded the conflict in a threatening way. "The Pyrenees no longer exist!" […] How to bring the 0 meridian to France without acting against his father wishes, posed a big problem for Louis XIV. Charles Perrault the poet architect solved it in a very ingenious manner by literally translating the Spanish Valverde into the French Vauvert.  It seems the conflict between geographers had something to do with the Pyrenees. As Louis's the XIVth had to decree that the "The Pyrenees no longer exist!".  If the 0 Meridien has to be marked by a tomb and not any tomb, then that tomb could have been in the Pyrenees. So Louis XIVth's problem was to bring the 0 Meridian to France without the reference to a TOMB or maybe to keep it hidden. For this reason Charles Perrault's great burden was to create a false Meridian, over the cellars of the Vauvert Devil (using the ressemblance between Valverde and Vauvert). Also from  CIRCUIT we find some references through which it is being suggested that the WELLS represent accesses but Cherisey is using different tricks (transpositions, intentional errors or time/space distorsions) to mix things up. 

Cherisey write: Valérien Ariès, the best French impresario, has his apartment on the sixth floor of a building without a lift in the Avenue Victor Hugo, where the cellars open to a well (shaft), through which it is possible to reach the 'drug-store' of the Champs-Elysées.
VII VARIETY - It was well expected of Louis XIII, known as “the just” to decide where the Zero Meridian was to be because he was born under the sign of Libra. The PERRAULT brothers. Suspected of having built the Paris Observatory according to cabalistic laws, to have fitted up an old well so that it communicated with the Catacombs, to have placed in the foundations a black virgin, patron of alchemists (Al Chimia black face) and called 'Notre Dame beneath the Earth”. Pun; coupole (dome) and coupe-pôle (cutting the pole). This extract is even more interesting as we discover in it some elements connected to the story in the south of France. The black virgin – notre dame beneath the earth (in the north), is the reflection (the transposition of the MERIDIAN) of ISIS-VENUS/NOTRE DAME de CROSS (in the south). That detail with COUP-POLE, which Cherisey is adding here, is very interesting".

Let us remember that this is not the first time this conclusion has been reached by other researchers.      It seems certain that around the time of Poussin and Bacon, when the Rosicrucians were being formed, when Arcadian Imagery reached its zenith as some sort of political agenda, when Saint Sulpice was being built, when Saint Vincent was carrying out his religious plans ..... Poussin was creating through his paintings a ‘punning’ language  which would need to be decoded. The main painting of interest is the ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’ in which it seems certain a particular area in France was being signalled and that this area had legends of a great archaeological treasure and most definitely a tomb of great importance.  

Persons around Poussin were heavily involved in this endeavour and may have included the setting of a Meridian in the area, or knowledge of something special at or near the tomb signified by Poussin.  Associated with these people were other groups, notably the mysterious Rosicrucians (who met in Lyon and appeared at the same time as Poussin). Let us remember the most interesting of suggestions about the origin of the term Rosicrucians - Rose and Cross -  was put forward by Andrews and Schellenberger. They say that where the Rose Line crosses [specifically at a point on Pech Cardou, a mountain in the region of Rennes-le-Chateau] at an important site on its east - west axis there is formed a Rose-Cross.  English representatives may also have been involved, in particular Francis Bacon. At this time others such as Nicolas Pavillon (a close friend of Richelieu and the Fouquets) was Bishop of Alet, an important town near to Rennes le Château. Pavillon helped set up the Compaigne de Saint Sacrement.  In some way or another all these groups were associated with a ‘monumental’ secret viz;  

 •    Bacon – said to have been involved in the ‘Matter of France’ and in possession of a secret.   

•    Poussin – divulged a secret to Louis Fouquet said to be  of immense import and valuable. 

The Rosicrucians – whose very existence supposedly centred on a huge secret 

& the Campaigne de Saint Sacrement -  created specifically to guard a ‘monumental’ secret.  

Shall we suppose that these are not 4 separate secrets but one major important one shared by these groups? 

One other Arcadian Academy is the one set up by Christina of Sweden. The members of this Arcadian Academy assumed classical Greek names & they were interested in all things Arcadian! Its first president was Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni. Other members included people like Gravina, Guidi & Gabrielle Rossetti, father of the English poets Dante Gabriel & Christina Rossetti. The members referred to themselves as ‘shepherds’ and their first gathering was held in the year of 1690, in the Giancola, which was owned by the Franciscans. Noblemen, ecclesiastics and layman alike were allowed to join. 

In this they seemed to have been emulating an earlier ’Shepherds of Arcadia’ society created by Lorenzo de Medici. 

Rospigliosi was an ardent admirer of Queen Christina. He also knew Guercino via Christina and Guercino is known to have been the first ever painter to use the enigmatic ‘et in arcadia ego…’ phrase.  Beresford (a modern art critic) tells us to be on our guard, however, regarding the assertion that Rospigliosi gave Poussin the idea of the ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’ because the theme had indeed been dealt with earlier by Guercino. However Beresford misses the point. Christina is known to have taken an interest in Guercino’s work, even visiting him in his Bologna studio. As Rospigliosi was such an intimate friend of Christina’s couldn’t it be that Rospigliosi may have known Guercino through Christina and seen his 'eT IN Arcadia Ego'? And that this gave him the idea of his ’particular’ theme of Arcadia in much the same way he did for Poussin?   

Judith Bernstock reports that most historians concur that Poussin probably saw Guercino’s painting with the ‘et in arcadia ego’ phrase during his stay in Venice in March 1624. This is assuming that the Guercino painting was still in the environs of Bologna. However, others assert that Urban VIII, a writer of elegiac verses bought the Guercino painting soon after his accession in 1623 and that Poussin may have seen it in Rome in the Barberini collection. 

What other source rather than Rospigliosi could have been the source for Poussin’s knowledge of Guercino? It may have been Poussin’s good friend Marino. This poet was in contact with Lodovico Carracci with whom Guercino later studied. Marino was patronised by Cosimo II de Medici and as we read above it was this Medici which commissioned from Guercino the painting called ‘Apollo Flaying Marsyas’ in 1618. This theme of Apollo Flaying Marsyas was a classicising metaphor of Christ’s sacrifice but of course its origins were in the Arcadian tale referred to above. 

There was another Arcadian Academy set up by Queen Christina which assumed classical Greek names & they were interested in all things Arcadian! Its first president was Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni. Other members included people like Gravina, Guidi & Gabrielle Rossetti, father of the English poets Dante Gabriel & Christina Rossetti. The members referred to themselves as ‘shepherds’ and their first gathering was held in the year of 1690, in the Giancola, which was owned by the Franciscans. Noblemen, ecclesiastics and layman alike were allowed to join. In this they seemed to have been emulating an earlier ’Shepherds of Arcadia’ society created by Lorenzo de Medici.

Rospigliosi was an ardent admirer of Queen Christina. He also knew Guercino via Christina and Guercino is known to have been the first ever painter to use the enigmatic ‘et in arcadia ego…’ phrase.      Beresford  (a modern art critic) tells us to be on our guard, however, regarding the assertion that Rospigliosi gave Poussin the idea of the ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’ because the theme had indeed been dealt with earlier by Guercino ). However Beresford misses the point. Christina is known to have taken an interest in Guercino’s work, even visiting him in his Bologna studio. As Rospigliosi was such an intimate friend of Christina’s couldn’t it be that Rospigliosi may have known Guercino through Christina and given him the idea of his ’particular’ theme of Arcadia in much the same way he did for Poussin?   However, a modern biographer of Poussin, Judith Bernstock reports that most historians concur that Poussin probably saw Guercino’s painting with the ‘et in arcadia ego’ phrase during his stay in Venice in March 1624. This is assuming that the Guercino painting was still in the environs of Bologna. However, others assert that Urban VIII, a writer of elegiac verses bought it soon after his accession in 1623 and that Poussin may have seen it in Rome in a Barberini collection.    What other source rather than Rospigliosi could have been the source for Poussin’s knowledge of Guercino? It may have been Poussin’s good friend Marino. This poet was in contact with Lodovico Carracci with whom Guercino later studied. Marino was patronised by Cosimo II de Medici and as we read above it was Lorenzo de Medici who had created the ‘Shepherds of Arcadia’ society. It was this Medici which commissioned from Guercino the painting called ‘Apollo Flaying Marsyas’ in 1618. It is evident from this painting (see below) that Guercino’s later painting ‘Et in arcadia ego’ was a study. This theme of Apollo Flaying Marsyas was a classicising  metaphor of Christ’s sacrifice.

We know that Cardinal Rospigliosi was said to immensely admire Queen Christina of Sweden. Queen Christina herself renounced all her titles and claims to the throne and instead surrounded herself with poets, painters, writers and other learned friends. She was interested in Rosicrucian works and writings and collected all manner of Rosicrucian manuscripts. She visited the painter Guercino – one of the first painters to use the motto ‘et in arcadia ego.' Eventually Queen Christina set up her  Arcadian Academy. The year was 1689. Significant cultural artists were members of this Academy and as far as I am aware this institution is still with us, albeit under a different name.  

I began to search for other Arcadian Academies. I was aware of the priestly L’AA – said to be a secret society of priests – also called the Arcadian Acaedmy. I thought it somewhat strange that a group of priests would call themselves after Arcadia. This Arcadian Academy, whatever it constituted, was said to be a successor to the Compaigne de St.Sacrament, another mysterious secret society. The Compaigne was formed in 1628 by certain individuals, the most prominent being St.Vincent de Paul, Jean Jeaques Olier & Nicholas Pavillion (the Bishop of Alet). It was supposedly set up to support Gaston d’Orleans, brother of Louis XIIIth and his claim to the throne of France.

    By coincidence I also came across an Arcadian Academy in England. This Academy appeared to be around 100 years older than its Italian counterpart. Why would England have an Arcadian Academy?
In this the English Arcadian Academy were identical. Their members, especially Francis Bacon & John Dee were also identical with Rene d’Anjou and his interest in Arthurian myths and imagery as well as the idea of chivalry. In fact it was Bacon and the English AA that fused all these elements together and formed the Elizabethan games popular during the Reanissance. These particular image ideas on a superficial level seems to have been because both Bacon and Dee identified themselves with the Tudor lineage – a lineage which is said to trace back to King Arthur, the Judiac Royal Line and even further back into Celtic history.

Elizabeth 1st may even be the White Queen referred to many times by Plantard and Cherisey.

    According to Peter Dawkins, in his book on the English Arcadian Academy;

“ Arcadia was presided over by shepherds, and Pan was the great God of Arcadia…arcadia comes from the word Arcas – the son of Zeus & Callsito. Callisto is the Great Bear & Arcas is the Little Bear in astronomical terms, and in Greek Mythology. These stars circumnavigate the North Pole Star – which esoterically is the symbol of high Kingship….. the Bear is a ‘veil’ to a real name, which means shepherd. It is where the sheep ( ie initiates) and shepherds ( adepts & Masters) come from ……..”

There appears to be something literal in this description – that although symbolic names are being used (sheep, shepherds etc) it seems to refer to perhaps real people. The role of Pan, the god of Arcadia is described by Francis Bacon in his ‘Wisdom of the Ancients’. He writes;

“ the ancients ….. described Nature under the person of Pan …… Pan represents and lays open the all of the things of nature … concerning his original there are two opinions ….. that either he came of mercury, that is the Word of God …or else he came from the confused seed of things (chaos)“ .

TIME is of importance and the figure of Old Father Time was synonymous with that of Pan. Pan was also Saturn or Satan. In Arcadian imagery Pan is ‘man’ himself, who falls as Lucifer from the heavens onto the world of matter ………. Saturn, or Satan means ‘adversary’ but also Intelligence. Therefore it is Intelligence which will test the spirit to see whether one is good …Pan therefore actually represents our path to enlightenment. Bacon's work – SYLVA SYLVARUM – means ‘wood of woods’ or ‘ Pan of Pans’. Apparently the Arcadian Pan was also called Sylva’ meaning ‘the lord of matter, author and director of the dance of the Gods, and author and disposer of the regular motion of the Universe’. Pan was known as the minister and companion of Bacchus (Dionysus), the God of tragic art and protector of theatre. In Bacon's admiration of Pan it might explain his statement that ‘what is now the Church of Christ was once the ‘brotherhood of Pan’.

Pan then, rules over the Golden Age in Arcadia. Dawkin's asserts that this golden age is synonymous with the Rosicrucian Enlightenment and others recognised this as the ‘Age of Aquarius’. The English Arcadian Academy, the Rosicrucain Enlightenment and the ‘new’ golden age appear to have been instigated by Francis Bacon. Bacon himself saw this ‘age’ as one of virtue, brotherhood and illumination.
 
A previous researcher, Alfred Dodds in his book ‘The Secret History of Francis Bacon’ says:

“ while on the continent he (Bacon) had become initiated into the mysteries {by} those ‘Knights Templar’ that evolved into the Rosicrucians & Masons'.

Francis Bacon certainly frequented Europe and because of his royal connections moved in courtly and government circles. Bacon himself was respected immensely by his peers. He was in love, at one point, with Marguerite of Valois (daughter of the Queen, Catherine de Medici) – and he spent many years in France. (In further discussions with Peter Dawkins he told me about a book he is about to publish which details Bacons’ involvement with ‘the matter’ of France and his connection with Poussin's secret). And while I fully accept that Bacon could have become privy to certain initiatory ‘orders’ through his connections – there are two figures who loom large in the early life of Bacon and who are more likely to have influenced him in this regard. 

They are John Dee and Robert Fludd.

Dame Frances Yates has suggested that ‘rosicrucianism’ ultimately stemmed from John Dee. From my research it appears that John Dee has been greatly misunderstood. He was of a great mind and searched out all truth and all forms of knowledge. He excelled in the art of symbolism and disguise (he had a numerical ‘secret’ name – this was 007 – and Ian Fleming based this idea around his stories of James Bond). Dee read Greek at Cambridge University. He travelled extensively with the express purpose of gaining knowledge. He formed close ties with the likes of Mercator (who taught him the art of map-making) and Frisius (who taught him the art of navigation). He studied astronomy and astrology, alchemy, the Cabbala and Hermeticism. He was friends with Geronimo Cardano (who in turn was a friend of Leonardo da Vinci) – and Dee taught the Cardano Grille cryptogram to his pupils. Dee was also said to have worked for the Earl of Pembroke.

Dee sought religious reform at the Elizabethan Court. He was very worried about the wholesale destruction of ancient and arcane knowledge in the form of books and manuscripts. This was systematically being carried out, in England, by Mary Tudor. It had started with Henry VIIIth who had strove to dissolve the monasteries and all the old libraries. Mary Tudor continued this trend – ensuring that no book which was ‘against’ the Catholic religion would survive. Dee therefore started his own library at Mortlake – which became a centre for universal learning.

Dee has been described as a Deist – that is he was a man of God but he subscribed to know formal religion. He has been described as Gnostic and is thought to have subscribed to the teachings of Valentineas, St. John the Evangelist, the Johannite sect and groups connected with Cathar thought. Dee consorted with the likes of Michael Mair, Raymond Andrae, Simon Studion, Robert Fludd and many others. His ‘ group’ wanted to establish a ‘universal religion’. Was this his Rosicrucianism?  Dee and his group actually met to discuss how a plan of a 'universal religion' could be set in motion. Their stated aims were:

“the inauguration of a universal religion & the removal of religious persecution“

Dee’s group formed an organisation called the ‘Evangelical Confederation against the Catholic League’.

Dee is even on record as saying that he wanted Britain to be the head of a United Europe (a curious echo later adopted by Plantard) and a new golden age and that Britain was indeed the land of the Rosy Cross. The red cross and the rose have, apparently, been particular emblems of England. The emblems have taken the form of St George, King Arthur, St. Michael and the Virgin. In Catholic teaching England is known as ‘Mary's Dowry’.

John Dee and his evangelical confederation involved a gnostic understanding of the gospels with a more direct relationship with God (i.e. no place for priests). With other influential society members at Luneberg the ‘Confederatio Militae Evangelical’ was created. It purported to have existed in 1186, and according to Simon Studion, in his Naometria this ‘Militae’ was the source of all later Rosicrucian offshoots. He further discusses the significance of the rose & cross when joined together. He asserts that the Rosicrucian doctrines stem from the ancient teachings of the Essenes and that of the first Christians. This same Militae are the defensive body within the Order (why would Rosicrucian's need a defensive body?) and Studion tells us that they are the ‘real’ secret organisation within the Rosicrucian's themselves. He asserts further that they preserve the true and secret doctrines of Jesus Christ (i.e. they are an alternative church perhaps?). Studion tells us that this same Militae met on July 27th, 1587 – several weeks before Johann Valentin Andrea was born. This is an interesting statement – because the Rosicrucian's are generally thought to have started with Andreas 16th century Manifestos. This suggests Rosicrucianism was active before the publication of the Manifestos.

Its fascinating that Studion states that this Militae are the source of all later Rosicrucian offshoots. Presumably this would include the Rosicrucians that Poussin would have been aware of? For we know that Poussin was aware of this group and that he mixed with their supporters. Poussin has been placed in the company of such people as Gabriel Naude (the evidence comes from letters exchanged by Dal Pozzo, a very good friend of Poussin, who place Poussin as a guest at parties thrown for Cassiano Dal Pozzo where Rosicrucian supporters are also guests). Frances Yates refers to Naude reporting events surrounding the Rosicrucians when the furore erupted in Paris in 1623. Poussin was actually living in Paris at the time and would have witnessed it. Naude also reports in his publications that the Bretheren of the Rosicrucians met in Lyon to discuss their launch! From 1619 - 1622 (the years before this launch in 1623) Poussin was living in Lyon. Was he aware of the coming furore and the Rosicrucians? Naude gives a list of those who represent the teachings of the Rosicrucians. They were John Dee, Trithemius, Ramon Lully and Paracelsus.

So this gives you a flavour of what Bacon and Dee together may have been striving for in their Arcadian Academy. Dee started the ‘golden age’ with the use of cryptography. In his ‘Mona Heiroglyphica’(1564) Dee argues that occult mathematics is the source of all knowledge. Cryptography he argued could both conceal the truth, but reveal the truth to those who had the requisite key. Occult mathematics, said Dee was the basis for all gnosis. 

The English Arcadian Academy announced its arrival with the publication of the ‘Shepheards Kalender’ in 1579. The ‘AA’ logo is seen here but previously noted on the book of John Baptista Portas in 1563 on ciphers. The ‘AA’ logo was then used by prominent poets and writers (Philip Sydney, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Ben Johnson and Bacon himself). The logo appears to have been used by a select group of friends and ‘initiates’. As Dawkin's remind's us: ‘they were not just used as pretty pictures but symbolic images of some truth or other’.

Francis Bacon is said to be the initiator of this ‘AA’ secret logo. Dawkins’ elaborates on the story in his book ‘Arcadia’ in which the AA is a cry from Apollo:

‘ …….. uttered when his beloved youth Hyacinth, the 15 year old son of Amilchar was accidentally slain ……… by a discus thrown by Apollo during the Spartan Games. The discus …. Hit the ground and bounced up …….. and sliced off the youths head ……….Apollo changed the youth into a flower …… and the God of Light then marked the flower with mourning signs – written as the Greek letter U’.

This letter is a symbol of spiritual knowledge and illumination. The letter U is the Greek upsilon – and corresponds, in the English alphabet to the letters U& V, which is the image of A. Dawkin's discusses this story further – telling us that Hyacinth and Adonis are one and the same. He writes:

‘ the story relates to the mysteries of initiation – particularly to the 3rd degree in which the initiate dies, slain for love in the quest for light – but is reborn in a new … form (the 4th degree)’.

The Rosicrucian symbol ‘AA’ is associated directly with this anguished cry of Apollo – and is said to foreshadow ritual death. The AA logo was a ‘secret sign’ – and in the same vein – a PAN tail piece was developed. It is suggested that this AA symbol has been the secret emblems of ‘invisible sages’ for centuries.  In discussions with Peter Dawkins – he agreed that the secret AA logo used by Bacon & Dee could have signalled the Arcadian Academy of England. He felt however that the primary symbolism was firstly that of the ‘Alpha & Omega’ and then secondly that of ‘Apollo & Athena’.  The AA logo has appeared on the Authorised Version of the Holy Bible (1611) and also the ‘Genealogies of the Scriptures’(1612). Also of interest are the uses of the AA logo by Andreas Alciat. He depicted the AA logo being used on pyramids & during the building of Solomon's Temple.

Francis Bacon discusses the symbolism of the letter A in his book ‘Academie Francoise’ which was dedicated to Henri III. It appears that Bacon worked with a secret group called the ‘Family (or House) of Love’. This group appears to have been a fellowship of initiates who transmitted occult truths and mystical knowledge. It appears then that the AA logo is a device adopted by certain ‘adepts’ to signify truth, the mysteries, spiritual illumination and spiritual knowledge. This could, of course, explain why spiritual men such as Dee and Bacon were ‘rosicrucian’ and it may also explain why certain enlightened priests could also be ‘rosicrucian’. The Rosicrucian's are known to us as a confraternity of secret brothers set on a course no less of changing the world. Their manifestos describe how this will be done, suggesting even that the Manifestos exhibit an anti-catholic & anti-papal bias. The first two Manifestos were published anonymously. Only the third one is associated with Johann Valentin Andreas, who said he composed it as a joke. Francis Bacon himself is equated with Christain Rose Croix but also the author of the first two manifestos. In his ‘Great Instauration’ Bacon states his aims for:

“ …. A general and universal reformation of the whole world ……. A renewal of all arts and sciences’

Bacon referred to himself as Apollo and it is in the Rosicrucian Manifestos that the text describes a character called Apollo who sets up a society of men famous for their wisdom and virtue. The ‘Fama Fraternitis’ echoes Bacon and his ‘Great Instauration’ saying that the aim of the Rosicrucians were to promote;

‘the universal and general reformation of the whole world'

The author of the Manifestos deplores the misuse of spiritual positions and authority for political and economic reasons. The author continues that the Rosicrucian's support the freedom of thought through knowledge and that its members were to heal the sick, meet once a year in a temple and that the ‘RC’ would be their seal. After Bacon had died his New Atlantis’ was published. In it he described a utopia and a secret brotherhood signified by the Rose Cross. They would meet every year in the Temple and heal the sick. Bacon is known to have set up a secret order (called the Knights of the Helmet –aka the Invisible College of the Rosy Cross Bretheren).This later became the Royal College. His ‘New Atlantis’ almost echoes the Manifestos.

The link in all of this appears to be secret knowledge of some sort, secret societies and the idea of a coming ‘new’ or ‘golden’ age which involves a complete reappraisal of religion and often hints at a ‘truer’ religion of Jesus Christ. There is very often antipathy towards the prevailing Roman Catholic dogma. Saunière is also said to have mixed with various personalities who were certainly steeped in Rosicrucian thought. Alfred Saunière, brother of Father Saunière was, however, associated with the Rite of Memphis Misraim, which overlapped with the Martinists. The fact is that Arcadian Academies were obviously Rosicrucian and anti-catholic and this suggests that the question to be asked is; why would any priest be involved with any form of Rosicrucianism? Why would a secret society of priests in Toulouse call themselves the AA, said to represent the Academie de Arcadia?

I began to look at the history of the AA and its activities, and also at the history of the Rosicrucian s in the town where this particular AA issued from. This was the town of Toulouse. This AA turned out to be a Catholic Secret Society. The members are described as Toulouse Royalists. The members practised official activities such as private forms of worship and although it existed as a secret society in Toulouse it was apparently 'as powerful as it was discreet’ . It seems on the outside to have been a charitable organisation from the 17th to the 20th century. The group had to remain secret during all of its existence until its archives were found. It seems to have had branches at Beziers, Carcassone, Alibi, Pepignan, Cahors & Poitiers. The branch at Toulouse however was different and this secret assembly was known as the 'Philanthropic Institute'. This Amicorum Asscociato (AA) closed down after receiving more and more opposition from the Catholic hierarchy. I am, currently, not able to discover what constituted the ‘opposition from the Catholic hierarchy’ considering the AA was made up of Catholic priests. This AA has been suggested to be the successor of the Compaignie du St Sacrement’ and this could have come from the work of Count Begouen. It was based at St.Sulpice.

Another AA could be a reference to the ‘Association Alchemique de France’. It was founded by Papus in 1896 with other names such as Lalande, Bartlet, Sedir, de Guaita and Fr.Jollivet Castelot. This group was part of the ‘Faculty of Hermetic Studies’ which may have been linked to the ‘Ecole Hermetique’ which was previously known as the ’Groupe Independent d’ Etudes Esoterique' which was probably founded in 1877 by d'Alyvedre and Papus. The Rosicrucian's themselves are said to have had a lodge at Toulouse. According to the ‘History of the Rosicrucian's’ they ascribe to themselves the romantic notion that it was at the time of Charlemagne that a Lodge was set up. It is said to have been set up by Arnaud.

In the guide book for Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland the authors suggest that Rosicrucianism goes back to the days of the Cathars. They discuss a number of Cathars (4000) who escaped the Albigensian persecution and ended up wandering the lands as troubadours, merchants and pedlars. The paper makers among them set up secret symbolism in the form of invisible watermarks (known as Lombardy paper) They give an illustration of a watermark which is termed Rosicrucian. 

An ‘anonymous’ graph was sent to Rhedesium called ‘L’occultisne Languedocien et ses avatars'. As the title suggests the diagram chronicles the links and lines of ‘descent’ for occult societies in France. The earliest appears to be in 1780 when Francois de Chefdebien founded the Phildelphes de Narbonne. This line then passes through to Marconis de Negre (in 1838 via his Rite of Memphis that he created at Montauban) to Charles Eugene and Theobald of Hautpoul (in 1840 they were members of La Sagesse at Toulouse. I will have cause to refer to La Sagesse later) and through to the Comte de Lapasse (in 1843 with the founding of his Ordre de la Rose Croix du Temple et du Graal). It is the Order set up by Lapasse that appears to be the precursor to those orders set up later by Peladan and Papus and their occult activities. This particular line of ‘descent’ culminates with Pierre Plantard and the ‘Prieure de Sion.

References to the Rosicrucian's of Toulouse are mentioned by Emile Dantinne. It is said to have commenced in 1850 and he refers to the order as well as three names associated with it. They are Firmin Boissin, Dr Adrien Peladan and the Viscount de Lapasse. Adrien Peladan stated that it was De Lapasse who founded the Rosicrucian Order of Toulouse. The father of Adrien and Josephin Peladan, Louis was associated with de Lapasse, and is also known to have been a member of the ‘Order of the Temple’ which at that time was headed by a priest – AE GENOUDE in 1840. These people are said to have excavated for a tomb of Christ in the area of the Aude. I am certain that the Rosicrucian's of Toulouse liaised with the priestly society of the AA.

Lapasse belonged to the ‘Societe Archaeologique du Midi de la France’ which was based also at Toulouse. In 1863 he became Secretary General of this society. He was also a member of the ‘Compagnie des Jeux Floraux'. This order dates back to the Troubadours (which may have included the persecuted Cathars) who are linked with the Grail movement and the Templar Tradition. It is stated that this Society helped Henri Boudet and also influenced him in the writing of his opus ‘LA VRAI LANGUE CELTIQUE’.
    Of course, I have wondered if these priests and the more modern occult societies in its higher degrees were in essence of the same mind as Bacon & Dee – who considered themselves guardians of ‘true’ knowledge or Gnosis. In some cases they may even be as ‘militant’ (for want of a better word) as Dee – who if you remember set up a Confederation Against the Catholic League. Is this really what the AA was – enlightened priests who held ‘true gnosis’ in opposition to the Roman Catholic Dogma – which is why their own hierarchy had them closed down?

Peladan held certain views that are common to the Prioy of Sion – that is; He believed that the French dynasty was the only dignified authority (which French dynasty?) and he supported the restoration of Christian ethics. This accords well with the royalist objectives of the AA. It may be pertinent here to mention that de Lapasse founded his 1850 order of the Rose Cross after another order, the LA SAGESSE ceased to exist during the Revoution in France. The members were also royalist and traditional Catholics and this Occult group included an Hautpoul family member (one of the families mentioned in the mystery of Rennes-le-Château). Their ideas were based on the idealism of knighthood which were based on the Templar Order. This Lapasse order was connected with the Arcade d’Orient.

   Referring back to Peladan he also researched the myths of ancient Greece, the Virgin Mary and also the evolution of the cross outside the Christian world. Why? The cross is an ancient symbol of infinity and it certainly pre-dates Chritianity. It is said to represent the world or the condition of the world. In this way it can be seen as an allegorical similarity with Pan in his ‘form’ of Saturn or Satan. The cross has ancient associations with suffering and sacrifice. The rose connotes, by contrast a new dawn, and a new hope. The rose upon the cross therefore represents immortality won by suffering.

   The AA as a device for truth and spiritual illumination and knowledge may have inspired our modern occultists. Michael Maier wrote about the AA as the ARCANA ACANISSIMA. Cagliostro made the AA a rite (SECRETO SSECTORM or Secret of Secrets) Aliester Crowley instigated an AA rite, which is still active today. Emile Dantinne set up the ORDER OF HERMES which has 4 degrees, of which the ARCANA ARCANORUM (AA) is the highest level. And finally the Golden Dawn has an AA rite at its highest level. And the secret Elus Cohen also have an AA rite.

In Conclusion:

The common source of underground or occult knowledge which has involved great thinkers, respected philosophers and many priests & religious heretics seem to refer time and again to the Church of Rome. A re-occurring theme is that of establishing a ‘new’ universal religion – participants are often anti-Catholic and more specifically anti-papal. There are persistent hints that the ‘Church of Rome' is not the real church of Christ, whoever Christ may yet turn out to be. The individuals involved who were also intelligent and learned – may have been sympathetic to these views. The priests may have been in possession of true gnosis. It may explain why these priests were hounded and then closed down by their own Catholic hierarchy. I am quite certain that an alternative ‘religious truth exists –& that this knowledge is guarded by great minds, secret sages, unknown superiors and enlightened Catholic priests .

NOTES

1] In Greek mythology, Arcas was a hunter who became king of Arcadia. He was remembered for having taught people the arts of weaving and baking bread and for spreading agriculture to Arcadia. Arcas was the son of Zeus and Callisto. In other accounts, his birth mother was called Megisto, daughter of Ceteus, son of Lycaon. Arcas's other sons were Erymanthus and Pelasgus.
Callisto was a nymph in the retinue of the goddess Artemis, or in some sources the daughter of King Lycaon. As she would not be with anyone but Artemis, Zeus cunningly disguised himself as Artemis and raped Callisto. The child resulting from their union was called Arcas. Hera became jealous, and in anger, she transformed Callisto into a bear. She would have done the same or worse to her son, but Zeus hid Arcas in an area of Greece, which would come to be called Arcadia, in his honor. Arcas was given into a care of one of the Pleiades, Maia. There, Arcas safely lived until one day, during one of the court feasts held by king Lycaon (Arcas' maternal grandfather), Arcas was placed upon the burning altar as a sacrifice to the gods. He then said to Zeus, "If you think that you are so clever, make your son whole and un-harmed". Zeus became enraged and made Arcas whole and directed his anger toward Lycaon, turning him into the first werewolf. Then, Arcas became the new king of Arcadia and the country's greatest hunter. One day, when Arcas went hunting in the woods, he came across his mother. Seeing her son after so long, she went forth to embrace him. Not knowing that the bear was his mother, he went to kill her with an arrow. In one version of the story, Arcas hunted Callisto because she had entered the forbidden sanctuary of Zeus on Mt. Lykaion. Zeus however, watching over them, stopped Arcas from shooting Callisto and raised them into the heavens as constellations (Boötes and Ursa Major). When Hera heard of that, she became so angry that she asked Tethys to keep them in a certain place so that the constellations would never sink below the horizon and receive water. Arcas’ bones were brought from Mount Maenalos to an altar of Hera in Mantinea according to the instructions of the Delphic Oracle.

2]Pelasgi,（Πελασγοί). A name given to the earliest (prehistoric) inhabitants of Greece. In Homer the name applied now to a people in Asia Minor dwelling near Ilium ( Il. ii. 840), and now to people inhabiting various parts of Greece. Thus, Argos is called Pelasgian (id ii. 681), and the god worshipped at Dodona is the “Pelasgian” Zeus (id. xvi. 233). Pelasgians are also spoken of as dwelling in Crete (Odyss. xix. 177). Herodotus tells us that the earliest name that Greece bore was Πελασγία, and ascribes a Pelasgic origin to some of the Greek peoples, as the Arcadians, Athenians, Aeolians, etc. (cf. Herod.i. 146; vii. 94, Herod., 95; viii. 44). He draws a definite distinction between the Pelasgi and the Hellenes proper, as being different in both race and language (i. 56, 58). Thucydides agrees with Herodotus, and goes a step further in identifying them with the Tyrrheni. He also mentions them as found in the island of Lemnos, on which see the article Etruria, p. 625.
Modern scholars, in general, regard the Pelasgi as a prehistoric people, probably non-Aryan in their racial affinities, and possibly to be identified with the same branch as the Etruscans, who came to Greece from Asia at a period earlier than that of the Indo-European migration. Still others use the name as designating the Indo-Europeans before the time of their separation into Greeks and Italians. To them are usually ascribed certain religious cults, which are in their origin non-Hellenic, such as that of the Cabeiri (q.v.) and of Zeus at Dodona; and also the architectural remains popularly called Cyclopean. The ancient authorities on the subject of the Pelasgi are collected by Bruck in his monograph Quae Veteres de Pelasgis Tradiderunt (1884). See also Eissner, Die Alten Pelasger (Leipzig, 1825); Hesselmeyer, Die Pelasgerfrage; Flor, Zur Geschichte der Pelasger (1859); and the articles Cyclopes; Hellas; Indo-European Languages; Mycenae.

3]The Iliad (/ˈɪliəd/;[1] Ancient Greek: Ἰλιάς, romanized: Iliás, Attic Greek: [iː.li.ás]; "[a poem] about Ilion (Troy)") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. 

4]The Odyssey begins after the end of the ten-year Trojan War (the subject of the Iliad), from which Odysseus (also known by the Latin variant Ulysses), king of Ithaca, has still not returned because he angered Poseidon, the god of the sea. Odysseus's son, Telemachus, is about 20 years old and is sharing his absent father's house on the island of Ithaca with his mother Penelope 

5]The events of the Trojan War are written about in a number of works of Ancient Greek literature, including Homer’s epic poem The Iliad, which is at least 2,500 years old.The cause of war is Helen’s elopement from the Spartan court with Paris, a Trojan prince. Helen is the wife of Menelaus - King of Sparta - and he musters an army led by his brother Agamemnon to sail to Troy to take Helen back. The war lasts for 10 long years, during which time the main events are concerned with the clashes between the leading characters, climaxing with the death of Hector at the hands of Achilles (as written about by Homer in The Iliad) and continuing with the creation of the Trojan horse by Odysseus, the means by which Troy is vanquished and Helen returned to Menelaus.

6]We read from Herodotus that there was a version of the Mysteries and their associated festivals, such as the Thesmophoria, which were practised by people in Arcadia - the only Peloponnesian region to celebrate the festival:
“The daughters of Danaus were those who brought this rite out of Egypt and taught it to the Pelasgian women; afterwards, when the people of the Peloponnese were driven out by the Dorians, it was lost, except in so far as it was preserved by the Arcadians, the Peloponnesian people which was not driven out but left in its home.”

7] a dying-and-rising god or resurrection deity is a religious motif in which a god or goddess dies and is resurrected. Examples of gods who die and later return to life are most often cited from the religions of the ancient Near East. The traditions influenced by them include the Greco-Roman mythology. The concept of a dying-and-rising god was associated the motif with fertility rites surrounding the yearly cycle of vegetation. Examples of Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis and Attis, Zagreus, Dionysus, and Jesus]. Resurrection or anastasis itself is the concept of coming back to life after death. With the advent of written records, the earliest known recurrent theme of resurrection was in Egyptian and Canaanite religions, which had cults of dying-and-rising gods such as Osiris and Baal. Ancient Greek religion generally emphasised immortality, but in the mythos a number of men and women were made physically immortal as they were resurrected from the dead.

8] Publius Vergilius Maro usually called Virgil or Vergil  in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. 

9]  [utopia typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members.  It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, which describes a fictional island society in the New World. A debt to Utopia must include The City of the Sun by Tommaso Campanella, Description of the Republic of Christianopolis by Johannes Valentinus Andreae, New Atlantis by Francis Bacon and Candide by Voltaire].

10] An Idyll is a short description in verse or prose of a picturesque scene or incident, especially in rustic life. The Arcadia that he represents is not a realistic one as other poets did by describing the region of Arcadia in the centre of the Peloponnesian peninsula. In Sannazaro, on the contrary, it becomes a country of the mind and a place of poetry, pleasure, contemplation and, above all, love. The narrative and its structure are inspired on a diverse amalgam of ancient and modern sources. Authors such as Virgil, Theocritus or Ovid are imitated in some parts of the composition, as well as Christian authors or modern poets such as Petrarch, Dante or Boccaccio. In this sense, Sannazaro’s work has an archaeological side for he imitates the moods, the archaisms and Latinisms of these authors. An essential characteristic of Arcadia is that it was written in vernacular -Florentine- instead of the most privileged Latin used by most of the important poets. Moreover, Sannazaro not only used the Florentine, but also diverse dialects and Neapolitan, which makes it unique, contributing to the legitimation of these secondary dialects.