ALEXANDER
VI
the
pope, the bull and the sun... 
Alexander VI Borgia - 16e century
Musée des Beaux-Arts
-Dijon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_VI "
Rodrigo Llançol was born on 1 January 1431 in the town of Xàtiva
in the Kingdom of Valencia, one of the component realms of the Crown of Aragon,
in present-day Spain.
His parents were the Valencian Jofré Llançol
i Escrivá (died bef. 24 March 1437) and his wife and relative the Aragonese
Isabel de Borja (died 19 October 1468). His family name is written Llançol
in Valencian and Lanzol in Spanish.
Rodrigo adopted his mother's family name
of Borja in 1455 following the elevation to the papacy of his maternal uncle Alonso
de Borja (Italianized to Alfonso Borgia) as Calixtus III. " He
was pope from 1492 until his death on 18 August 1503 with the name of Alexander
VI. Why
the choice of this name "Alexander" ?
Alexander
: Ancient Greek Alexandros, which comes from aléxo ("defend"),
and andrós, genitive of aner ("man").
Two possible
meanings that refer, in ancient times, to war values :
— " the one
who rejects the men "
— or " the one who protects humans, humanity.
"
The first was
named Pope Alexander I, the sixth bishop of Rome, from 107 to 116.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_I The
name of Alexander refers to Antiquity :
—
The Greek king of Macedon, Alexander III of Macedon (Born in Pella in - 356, died
in Babylon in - 323) commonly known as Alexander the Great Alexander
was proclaimed pharaoh at Memphis in – 331. He
sacrifices the bull Apis — a guarantee of respect for Egyptian traditions
— and honors the other gods. Then he went to the Mediterranean coast where
he chose the site of the future Alexandria, finally completed under Ptolemy I
or Ptolemy II. Legend says that
Alexander had himself chosen the plans of the new city. Then he went into the
oasis of Siwa, where he met the oracle of Ammon-Zeus who confirming him as a direct
descendant of the god Amun. —
The port of Alexandria in Egypt and about seventy cities which he founded, the
majority of which bears the name of Alexandria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria 
The
emblem of the Borgia family is a bull.
He
himself wants to be the descendant of the god Osiris because the bull Apis is
the manifestation of the sun god.
Borgia
apartments - Vatican
In
the years 1492-1493, he asked the painters Pier Matteo d'Amelia
(Piermatteo Lauro de Manfredi da Amelia), Antonio
del Massaro da Viterbo (also called Il Pastura) and Pinturicchio
(Bernardino di Betto di Biagio) to decorate, in an exuberance and polychrome decoration,
his apartments in the Vatican. These artists employ many assistants : Umbrian
staff of course but also, based on latest assumptions, Tuscan assistants. There
are six halls : the Hall of the Sibyls (mythological figures highly valued by
Alexander VI), the Hall of the Credo, the Salle of the Arts, the Hall of the Saints,
the Hall of Mysteries of the Faith and the Hall of the Popes.
Even
if the traditional theological interpretation has its place in front of these
paintings, it is clear that Alexander VI had a great interest in ancient Egyptian
and Greek mythology : the great Christian figures and legends be found next to
myths of Isis and Osiris, Io and Argus, in a constant reference to the bull, a
key element of the Borgia family heraldry.
Two
iconographic programs are superimposed with the purpose to exalt the glory of
the Borgia family :
— one, theological to ensure the salvation of the
soul
— the other, political, in a genealogical construction : the Borgias
claimed to be descendants of Osiris (in the form of the sacred bull Apis), father
of a legendary Egyptian Hercules would have happened in Italy through Hispania
to release the giants of Etruria. Thus, the Borgia family appears as the representative
of a universal monarchy with a spiritual and temporal authority over all other
powers.
In the figures of
the frescoes, it may be possible to discover the portraits of some family members,
as Emperor Caesar or Lucrezia in Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
In
the rooms of his apartments, Alexander VI - Borgia was celebrating his temporal
glory openly : heraldic emblems in profusion, the presence of the bull Apis which
appeared in his arms, representation of his person in the Resurrection in the
frescoed hall of the Mysteries by Pinturicchio to 1493-1494.
After
his election, Alexander VI offered bull fights to the population. 
Coat of arms of the
Borgia family :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Borgia
-----------------------------------
This
return to the Egyptian mysteries is strongly marked in the decoration : —
Hermes Trismegistus is represented twice Pinturicchio
- 1- Isis with Hermes, Trismegiste and Moïse
Hall of the Saints
2- Hermes Trismegiste and the Zodiac
Hall of the Sibyls
http://soundzgreg.blogspot.com/2010/12/pinturicchio-hermes-trismegistus-with.html
—
The pyramid is central in the scene
Legend
of Isis seeking the fourteen pieces of the body of Osiris 
The
pyramid is central in the tapestry 2
—
And a bull genuflects before the Cross.
So, co-exist the great religion of ancient Egypt and Christianity : Alexander
VI himself adoring Christ and attending His resurrection and the "family
and personal" bull adoring the Cross. For Egyptians, the soul of Osiris had
entered the Apis bull or the ram of Mendes. 
Apis
bulls adoring the cross - detail of the cornice of the hall of saints
with
the medallion of Alexander VI and bulls
Borgia apartments - Vatican This
is the bull of Alexander VI kneeling before the cross. This carved representation
is very important. It has two meanings: a)
Pope Alexander VI adoring the crucified Christ affirms the primacy of the Christian
religion b) but in reference
to Egyptian beliefs, it seems to mean that the old religions are not wrong but
they have paved the way for Christianity, sensible to the thought of Pico della
Mirandola who argued that "all truth is one". The syncretism of knowledge
(astrology, Scholastic, cabal, chiromancy,
etc ...) specific to the humanist philosophy seeks to cover all disciplines and
all knowledge. For the time, the thoughts of Ficino, Erasmus or Pico della Mirandola,
by implementing their own freedom of thought, renewed knowledge by the association
and the confrontation of different kinds of knowledge and the alleged truths.
The Hunt of the Unicorn does she illustrate the replacement of old pagan religions by Christianity ? The tapestry does she glorify the victory of Christianity ?
In the tapestry 2, the unicorn is represented kneeling,
head almost kissing
a cross at the foot of the fountain. http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=603 
Detail
of the ceiling in the Hall of the Saints
Osiris and the Apis bull to serve
a mythical explanation
for the armorial bearings of the Borgia family
Pinturicchio
painted also in castle of St Angelo,
directly controlled by the Pope, a cycle on the Pope's victory over Charles VIII
of France. The frescoes were destroyed in September 1628, during the work ordered
by Pope Urban VIII Barberini. There are only descriptions as those of the German
Johann Fichard, visiting Rome in 1536.
In
a great profusion of details and portraits of contemporary characters, this painted
"chronic" recounted the recent events that took place from January 16
to 28, 1495, during the last days of presence in Rome of Charles VIII, marked
by peace sealed between the French sovereign and Alexander VI at the banquet in
the Borgia Apartment. Jean Perréal who accompanied
the French king has certainly seen these works of art. Alexander
VI was a man of action but also a philanthropist ; he has surrounded himself with
philosophers ; he protected them (as John Pico della Mirandola) probably for purposes
of propaganda and he rewarded them with offices and honors in the papal curia,
in the University or in the Roman Academy founded by Julius Pomponius Leto, a
great philologist and passionate of classical Rome. Alexander VI also showed a
keen interest in archaeological researches that he financed in Rome. Michelangelo
Buonarroti arrived in Rome in 1496. At just 23, in 1499, he sculpted his famous
Pietà, which was said that Christ's face was that of John Borgia, son of
Pope Alexander, who was murdered under mysterious circumstances in Rome two years
earlier in 1497. http://www.aparences.net/rome-mecenat-et-pouvoir-papal/alexandre-vi-borgia/
-----------------------------------
Here, we must return to
the universal symbolism of
the cross
"
From 26 000 years and more, all solar gods or "Son of God" have the
same characteristics. They are born from a virgin three days after the winter
solstice, always identified with the death of the sun. The third day after the
winter solstice is the date December 25, recurrent birth.
The
representation of the Virgin and child God has remained the same since Babylon,
only the names change : Semiramis / Tammuz, Isis / Horus, Mary / Jesus. The
symbol of the Cross is systematic, it marks the four seasons of the solar cycle.
Mithra "Son of God" was crucified, Virishna
"Son of God" was crucified, Horus
"Son of God" was depicted lying on a cross, Adonis
"son of God" was crucified, Quetzalcoatl and
Krishna are also shown
nailed to a cross. Death of the Gods saviors to redeem our sins is a common factor,
and they resurrect the dead at Easter, the day when the sun is closest to Earth.
[…] If,
symbolically, we recognize together that the sun itself is crucified on the cross
of the four seasons of eternity, we could perhaps do without some dissimulations
and have, in conscience, the key to almost all solar mythical figures called "Son
of God." We would then simply locate the house where the sun is astrologically
to decode the symbolism of the era in question of any terrestrial tradition or
religious. " ----------------------------------- Gilbert
Durand, in The anthropological structures
of the imaginary (Boombana Publications, 1999) writes ( pp. 378-381 in French
book) : " Eliade (Treaty
of History of religions, Payot, 1949, p. 253-254) seems to be right when he
connects the vegetation myths to the legends on the cross. This connection is
still practiced in a too rational way through the plants that resurrect the deaths
in Indian, Iranian or Chinese traditions. Indeed,
if these virtues are attributed by the Christian folklore to the wood of the cross,
as does for example the legend of St. Helena, we believe that this sense is secondary.
The Christian cross, erected as wood, as an artificial tree, drains only the symbolic
meanings inherent in any vegetal symbolism. In
fact, the cross is often identified with a tree,
by the iconography and the legend ; it consequently becomes ascension ladder,
because the tree is contaminated by the archetypes of ascension. On
the legend of the cross, the symbolism of the drink of eternity, the fruit of
the tree or the rose blooming on dead wood, also is grafted.
[…] But
mainly through all these symbols, it should be noted that the cross is a symbol
of spatial aggregation, as Guénon has shown in a book (The Symbolism
of the Cross, Vega, 1950). The
symbol of the cross is a union of opposites, a sign of aggregation of the gunas
which should be compared to the Hindu tradition, and Kua (the union of
Yin and Yang) of the Chinese tradition such as the Pythagorean tetraktys.
This
symbolism is particularly noticeable in the mythical tradition of the ancient
Mexicans. The cross is a symbol of the entire world, the central link of the years. Much
better, Mexican mythology gives us all the symbolic palette that comes gather
under the sign of the cross : that is Xiuhtecutli,
the fire god who sits on the "home" of the Universe. Place
of the synthesis, the center presents an ambiguous face : a negative aspect and
a favorable aspect. At last, in the Codex Borgia, the center is represented
by a multicolored tree whose vertical ambiguity is clear ; it is topped with a
quetzal, bird of the East, and springs from the body of an earth goddess, symbol
of the West. More, this cosmic
tree is accompanied, on one side by the Great God Quetzalcoatl,
the god who sacrificed himself on a pyre to give life to the sun and to Venus,
on the other side by Macuilxochitl, god of the dawn,
of spring, but also of games, music, dance, love. We
will examine the technological and finally sexual roots of this almost semiological
archetype of the union of opposites, and thereby we see how the
connection of the fire, the sexuality and the wooden cross form a perfectly
coherent constellation whose the sign of the cross is the overdetermined emblem.
Thereby we discover the pattern of rhythmic movement and the sexual act that underlies
and orders subjectively any dream and any meditation on the cycle.
[…]
Page 389, Gilbert Durand writes
: " This gigantic mythical constellation that connects
the fire, the cross, the friction and the gyration, the sexuality and the music
seems to be summed up in a note of Marcel Granet, on a ritual object found in
searches of Lo-Lang in Japan. This object consists of a circular plate of hardwood
arranged at a square board of soft wood. " | 
