Il Battistero di Firenze e la tomba di papa Giovanni XXIII

I segreti di Firenze

Lo sapete che nel Battistero di Firenze c'è la tomba di Giovanni XXIII? No non è uno scherzo, ma quello a cui mi riferisco non è Papa Roncalli, ossia appunto papa Giovanni XXIII, al soglio pontificio dal 1958 al 1963, bensì a Baldassarre Cossa, nato a Procida (o Ischia) nel 1370  e morto a Firenze il 22 dicembre 1419, definito successivamente antipapa.

da Wikipedia: il Battistero di Firenze

Tutto risale alla fine del 1377, quando la sede apostolica dopo circa settant'anni (1309-1377) che si trovava ad Avignone, fu nuovamente trasferita a Roma per decisione di Gregorio XI. La sua morte generò problemi interni alla Chiesa soprattutto per le voci della possibile elezione di un papa transalpino, che con ogni probabilità avrebbe riportato la sede pontificia in terra francese: la sollevazione popolare fece sì che invece fosse eletto il napoletano  Bartolomeo Prignano, arcivescovo di Bari, che assunse il nome di Urbano V. La fazione francese non gradì la scelta e a Fondi elesse così un proprio Pontefice,

The Templars, the Crusades and the social relations with Islamism

After the Thousand year an ideological split divided the Mediterranean world between Islam and Christianity. During the period of the Arab presence in Sicily and Spain economic and cultural relations were intences  between this two civilizations.

The Arabs conveied to the western world techniques, tastes, artistic forms, scientific ideas, which had greatly enriched the cultural baggage of European populations. However these contacts between cultures were accompanied by a rigid ideological closure: Christians considered Muslims as “infidels”; on the contrary for Muslims “infidels” were the Christians.

The Concil held in Narbonne in 1054 proclaimed: no Christians kill another Christian, because he who kills a Christian sheds the blood of Christ. Distracted by men and by the evangelized world, violence would be directed against the infidels and for Christian infidels were above all Muslims.

The “peregrinationes”, later called Crusades were great military expeditions that moved from West to the East in order to liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim rule. In the Middle Ages  many Christians driven by religious fervor, made long journeys to visit the Holy Sepulchre and Jerusalem.

The Cult of Isis in ancient Fiesole

Many myths are linked with the name of Egyptian goddess Isis; she was the wife of Osiris, she composed the god’s remains when he was killed and she was the mather of Horo. She was also assimilated with the goddess Hathor, the star Sirius and in Ptolomaic times, when Osiris became Dionysus, she became Demeter. The cult celebrate motherhood and life, the wisdom and justice.
Her cult was also brought to Rome during Caligola’s reign (37-41 A.D.) and there it became very popular in spite of the opposition of the Senate.

The penetration of cult in Florence and Fiesole was due to veterans of roman army came back from oriental campaigns at the beginning of II century.
In the first time the Isis religion devoloped in Italy assume a voluptuary form and was followed by prostitutes, but when arrived in Fiesole it was already more chasten. The cult rapidly spread all over the Roman Empire, so that we could even consider it to be the first universal religion. The area around File in Egypt was the last bulwark of heathenism against Christianity but even there eventually the temples dedicated to Isis were, for the most part, transformed into Coptic churches.

Few people know that the cult of Isis in Roman dominated Fiesole (which consequently had to worship the same gods) became very popular and there was even a temple dedicated to the goddess of the Nile, built in the II century A.D., halfway up the Acropolis hillside of San Francesco.