Monday, November 20, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
I fixed my video of part 2 of the Star Wars series, now it's not minimised like the old one so if anybody is interested the new google link is here:
Star_Wars_-_Part_2_(The_NWO_Empire_Strikes_Black).
In part 2, we go on a trip to find out the truth about the cult,The Nation of Yahweh and if really indeed their leader is a fanatic and a murderer that deserves to be in prison, we investigate the evidence and compare with the crimes of the Bush Administrations starting with George HW Bush who was vice-president in the 80's when the Nation first started and which was the President when the FBI arrested the leader and whom started the New World Order right after the arrest which lead to the first Golf War against Saddam Hussein which is now happening again and a global war on Terror is in effect and also a war on our liberty and security and freedom ever since both presidents son and father did something different but related on the same day September 11 (1991 & 2001)
Maybe he's guilty,maybe he's innocent,maybe he is not the Son of God,maybe not of all this matters,maybe we are all gonna die and stay here in Hell on Earth where drugs,murder,dead end jobs,broken relationships, is all life is meant to be.... someone or something needs to stop this because i think that the greed (and racism) of certain
people will eventually lead to the extermination of all life on the planet or of a bunch of people !
I clearly believe the devil existed, i see his followers and signs of his behaviour everyday...but i want to believe in a God but there's evidence but not enough to answer all of my doubts because we can be tricked easily and fall into a trap, either way we are trapped already... so who can and who will save us....and when...nobody knows !
AND ALSO I MADE A NEW VIDEO ON THE BLACK MADONNA AND I FOUND A GOOD WEBSITE WITH MORE INFORMATION ON THAT (http://www.africanbynature.com/links/madonnalinks.html)
The_Black_Madonna_Code_-_Theres_Something_About_Mary
various videos about the black Madonna. which is a religious icon depicting Semiramis and her so-called divine child Nimrod. The first known representation of the dynamic duo full of ego (both names Nimrod & Mary are related in Hebrew with Rebellion also Nimrod was know by the Romans as Mars The Rebellious One and The God of War)was Isis and Osiris(Horus/Tammuz) both both of them are known by various names as Semiramis became The Queen of Heaven,Ishtar,Astarte,Artemis,Diana,Cybele,Kali,etc... and her husband/son became known as the god of many pagan religions and cults as Zoroaster,Lucifer,Baal,Ninus,Odin,Marduk,Moloch,Buddha,Khrisna,Mithras,Jason,Jesus,Zeus,Hercules,etc... all of this information can be found in books like "The 2 Babylons", "The World's 16 Crucified Saviours",and trough videos like "The God Who wasn't there",or Acharya S. videos who prove that all these figures have things in common and seem to all stem from the same mystery schools that started with Babylon founded by none other than Nimrod who came to be known as Mighty Man of renown which goes into another topic relating to Fallen Angels (Annunaki,Nephilim,Elohim and Nibiru or Planet X of the Sumerians)
but the black madonna is clear proof that before 1492. Europeans had no problem worshipping and admitting that god or "his mother" were black. But like the Greeks who did worship and get there knowledge from Egyptians and other black peoples, the Roman Catholic church decide to whitewash religion,history and their achievements and decided to destroy all evidence of the worship of a black mother goddess and decide to label as "heretics and witches" all followers of the black virgins during the Inquisition and the killings of the Knights Templar spoken in the DaVinci Code movie. It is also interesting to note that a lot of the black Madonnas are in France. So,2 interesting questions arises:
1-What color is the right color for Jesus,Mary and if possible their "last descendant" ?
2-What happened at Fatima with the Dance of The Sun evidence of UFO's or all those people were crazy ?
the truth must come out one way or the other !
Thursday, October 05, 2006
I found a direct link to Acharya S. - The Suns of God video presentation here:
http://www.uads.org/u/looyah
check it out if your not up on what i'm talking about...videos like this is the first
step to open up your mind to what i'm talking about and my beliefs
and i uploaded this Pheonix Orion album,check out my favorite track ''The Prophecy'', you must be a 360 Degree Mason to understand and appreciate the ''dopeness'' of the concept of this song:
1-ZX 1.0
2-Scanners
3-Birdman
4-CyberChristClone
5-Fith Dimensional
6-Jedi Mastery
7-Dean Men Don't Download
8-Millenium Fever
9-ZX 2.0
10-Blade Runner
11-Prophecy
12-New Style Lazer
13-ZX 3.0 (and bonus hidden track)
http://rapidshare.de/files/35596839/Phoenix_Orion_-_Zimulated_Experiencez.rar
you can also hear Pheonix Orion on a collabo album with Cannibus (Cloak & Dagger) and another one with Paranormal as The Beyonders, you can find them at www.albumbase.com
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Just for the ''heck'' of it...I decided to make these videos, I'd like to clarify that i am
not a member of this group because i consider myself a sinner who is not worthy to wear white
and be in the presence of ''good God loving people'' because i have a lot of anger at this system and
at everything...the whole issue about God,Life,The Truth,Religions,Aliens,Planet X,Black Madonna,etc...
basically drove me to a point where i either know too much or still don't know anything ! I feel like a ''fallen angel'' who woke up out of a comma and doesn't no which one is his master or how to help the human race see past this problem of race,religion,or if we have free will or our destiny has already been decided...and if basically we are just
robots or (replicas or clones) of the Gods (whatever you want to call them...Elohim,Annunaki,) or we are just ''bacteria'' that evolve into primates then into Man like the Universe was created by a Big Bang without ''Intelligent Design''....
Basically with all the stuff coming out about the Illuminati and what their doing and with all their agents Promoting all kind of new age,freemasonic,christian lies i wonder where the truth and The Real God is while all this stuff is happening ?
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Alessandro De Medeci
Despite the many portraits of this 16th century Italian Renaissance figure, his African heritage is rarely, if ever, mentioned.
For more on this omission as it has occurred in the art world, read this January 2005 update :
'' A View On Race & The Art World ''
A cameo of Alessandro de' Medici
by Domenico di Polo.
In a current exhibition on Italian Renaissance art that is on display at the Philadelphia Museum until Feb. 13, 2005, a focal work is a portrait of Alessandro de' Medici. Unfortunately, however, the unique opportunity that this small, but important show might have offered to the national conversation on race has been ignored.
Down through the centuries, most scholars have accepted that Alessandro de' Medici's mother was a slave woman and she was so identified by Alessandro's contemporaries. But the subject of the African ancestry of Alessandro, the first Duke of Florence, is being downplayed by the curators of the Philadelphia exhibit, entitled "Pontormo, Bronzino and the Medici."
Due to a kind of snobbery endemic to the field - a subject which Phillipe de Montebello at the Met in New York so unabashedly has talked about - it is not just the Philadelphia Museum but the American art establishment in general that appears to be having difficulty coming to terms with this Medici scion from whom descends some of Europe's most titled families, including two branches of the Hapsburgs.
In just the last three years, for example, a portrait of Alessandro's daughter, Giulia, Princess of Ottojano, and another portrait of the Duke himself have appeared in two major exhibitions in the U.S.: one at the National Gallery in Washington in 2001 and another at the Art Institute of Chicago in an exhibit which a few months later travelled to the Detroit Institute of the Arts where it closed in 2003. However, as with the current Philadelphia exhibit, little was done by the curators of these shows to draw the public's attention to either the Duke's color or his place in history.
In the only reference to the Duke's color in the entire 173-page catalogue of the Philadelphia exhibit, Karl Strehlke, the curator and organizer writes, "Some scholars have claimed that Alessandro's mother was a North African slave. This cannot be confirmed, however, and the text of a letter that she wrote to her son in 1529 suggests that she was an Italian peasant from Lazio." Such a statement can only be described as disingenuous.
Based on what Lorenzino de' Medici, Alessandro's kinsman, wrote about her in his Aplogoia, all scholars who have dealt with the subject accept that the servant whom he cites as the Duke's mother, is one and the same Simunetta from Collavecchio in the province of Lazio. Besides her being specifically identified as a "slave" by the historians Bernardo Segni and Giovanni Cambi, both contemporaries of the Duke's, Cardinal Salviati, a relation of Alessandro's, describes this woman as "una villisima schiava." And, in point of fact, the question of identity that Lorenzino de' Medici does raise, and Segni repeats, is not whether Simunetta was Alessandro's mother, but whether the "mule driver" she subsequently married was Alessandro's father instead of one or the other of two candidates still attributed with his paternity.
As Christopher Hare in his work, Romance of a Medici Warrior, explains, "[Alessandro] was reported to be the son of the late Lorenzo dei Medici, Duke of Urbino, but the affection shown him by Clement VII, gave strength to the general opinion that the Pope was his father. In any case his mother was a mulatto slave, and Alessandro had the dark skin, thick lips and curly hair of a Negro."
Like Hare, one need only to browse through the images of the Duke published in Carla Langedijk's two-volume work, Portraits of the Medici, to verify contemporary descriptions of his apearance such as Ceccherelli's "capelli ricci neri e bruno in vise," (brown in complexion with very curly black hair) or Scipione Ammirato's "color bruno, labbri grossi e capegli crespi." (brown, thick lips and kinky hair.)
Girogio Vasari's full length portrait of Alessandro de' Medici from the frescos in the Palazzo Vecchio.
Granted, the majority of paintings, coins, medallions, etc. depicting Alessandro de' Medici were done after his assassination in 1537. However, they were the work of artists who had known him personally. The African traits of the Duke that appear in Giorgio Vasari's frescos in the Palazzo Vecchio, for example, are just as pronounced as in the more familiar image attributed to the school of Bronzino. Furthermore, in Vasari's own description of the work he did for this commission, the accuracy of the innumerable portraits he executed and the public's ability to identify them, especially after their demise, was the source of a great deal of pride for him.
Girogio Vasari's full length portrait of Alessandro de'
Medici from the frescos in the Palazzo Vecchio.
But what could be more decisive proof of Alessandro's African ancestry than the following taken from Scipione Ammirato, the court historian of Alessandro de' Medici's successor, Cosimo:
"Non sono per tacere l'opinione,che in quel eta ando attorno intorno la nascita di Alessandro, la qual fu, che egli fusse nato d' una schiava in quel tempo, che il padre e i zij rientrarono in Firenze. Il che peravventura pote procedere per esser egli stato di color bruno, e per aver avuto i labbri grossi, e i capegli crespi."
What makes the omission of Alessandro's race in the current Philadelphia exhibition problematic, especially after criticism by the Washington Post and the New York Times for the similar omission in the National Gallery's exhibition, is the fact that besides being the first black head of state in modern western history, Alessandro de' Medici's race was quite pivotal to the Grand Ducal and the most politically powerful period of Medici history.
Pope Clement VII, Alessandro's father, who also was born illegitimate, obviously felt that his illegitimate son would need every political bootstrap he could obtain for him if Alessandro were to survive as the legal representative of the family. Hence the bargain Clement struck with the Emperor Charles V in 1529 to have Alessandro created Duke of Florence even though the family had assiduously avoided such honorifics so as not to appear insensitive to the republican aspirations of the population.
Considering not only the racial problems America is still struggling with but also the high proportion of African Americans in Philadelphia, the curators' treatment of the subject of Alessandro's African slave mother is troubling. All the more so considering how important a role the de' Medici have played in European history and culture and the implications this holds for undermining the racial preconceptions that people of color must still contend with today.
Moreover, it seems to me that in addition to the elitism of the rarified world of the art connoisseur, the old bugaboo of political correctness is also to blame. For those who push the victimization paradigm of the African American experience, there can be no room in the discourse on race for "narratives" that do not fit the stereotype.
But such a stance is misguided. A study of this particular branch of the Medici family would provide us with a unique and invaluable insight into how one of the most powerful and influential dynasties in Europe was forced to deal with the issue of race so early in the history of the African slave trade.
Alessandro wielded great power as the first duke of Florence. He was the patron of some of the leading artists of the era and is one of the two Medici princes whose remains are buried in the famous tomb by Michaelangelo. The ethnic make up of this Medici Prince makes him the first black head of state in the modern western world.
Alessandro was born in 1510 to a black serving woman in the Medici household who, after her subsequent marriage to a muleteer, is simply referred to in existing documents as Simonetta da Collavechio. Historians today are convinced that Alessandro was fathered by the seventeen year old Cardinal Giulio de Medici who later became Pope Clement VII. Cardinal Giulio was the nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
On being elected Pope in 1523, Cardinal Giulio was forced to relinquish the lordship of Florence but he appointed a regent for his thirteen year old son Alessandro who had just been created Duke of Penna, and a nephew, Ipollito. Even though both were bastards, they were the last of what has come to be referred to as the elder line of the family.
Republicanism had grown in Florence under the regent and when Emperor Charles V sacked Rome in 1527, the Florentines took advantage of the situation to install a more democratic form of government and both Alessandro and Ipollito fled. When peace was finally made two years later between the Papal and the Imperial factions, Charles V agreed to militarily restore Florence to the Medici. After a siege of eleven months Alessandro was finally brought back as the Emperor's designated head of state.
In 1532, the new Florentine constitution declared Alessandro hereditary Duke and perpetual gonfalonier of the republic. Though his common sense and his feeling for justice won his subjects' affection, those in sympathy with the exiled opposition hated Alessandro and accused him of using his power to sexually exploit the citizenry. However, only two illegitimate children with the possibility of a third, have been attributed to him and even these he fathered with one woman, Taddea Malespina, a distant cousin of his.
With the death of his father, the Pope, in 1534, the exiles attempted to oust the Duke Alessandro from Florence. But the Emperor decided to uphold Alessandro and in an obvious show of support, gave Alessandro his own illegitimate daughter, Margaret of Austria, as wife.
Despite the security this kind of support should have given him, Alessandro was finally assassinated a few months after his wedding by Lorenzaccio de Medici, a distant cousin who had ingratiated himself in order to win his confidence. According to the declaration he later published, Lorenzaccio claimed that he had executed Alessandro for the sake of the republic and that he had been able to disarm him of his personal bodyguards by setting up a sexual liaison for him as a trap. When the anti-Medici faction failed to use this occasion to overthrow the ducal government, Lorenzaccio fled in dismay. He was himself eventually murdered some twelve years later.
'' A Medici ''Impressa'' or Emblem ''
In one of the Medici palaces in Rome - the Villa Madama - there is an image of a cherub in a Renaissance frieze which, considering how it pertains to what we are discussing on this web site, could prove something of a talisman for those of us of mixed racial backgrounds.
Although approximately four foot square, the section with the cherub can easily be overlooked because it's part of a frieze positioned high above the floor and is one in a series of figures - dancing girls, animals, and cherubs - in the garland-festooned mural.The freize is assumed to be the work of either Giulio Romano or his assistant, Giovane da Udine, or both, and to have been painted somewhere between 1521-6.
With ribbons tying the garlands together around their necks, ten almost provocatively nubile female angels dressed in white classical tunicae serve as anchors. Frolicking in the flower and fruit laden boughs of greenery are four times as many putti or cherubs, two on either side of each angel. What first catches the attention of the observer, however, is that unlike the rest of the putti who are all depicted nude, there is one who is fully dressed. Not only is he wearing a tunic, it is obvious that he is wearing either pants or leggings. Far more arresting than his dress, however, is the fact that this putto happens to be a little black African.
Besides the rarity of such a black figure, what makes it historically significant is its location. Although named after 'Madama' Margaret of Austria (the illegitimate daughter of the Hapbsburg Emperor Charles V) who owned the villa from 1537 until her death in 1586, this magnificent building was actually built by Cardinal Giulio de Medici who became Pope Clement VII. Giulio de Medici presented the villa to Madama Margarita as part of her marriage to Alessandro de Medici. Although officially passed off as a nephew of Pope Clement VII, Alessandro was in fact the Pope's bastard.
Pope Clement had persuaded Emperor Charles V to make Allesandro the first Duke of Florence and, in obtaining Margarita's hand for him, Pope Clement hoped to insure Imperial protection for his son against factions hostile to the Medici and their autocratic control of the city.
Although not generally known, it is a well-established fact among scholars that Duke Alessandro was a person of colour. Even the name of his African mother, Simonetta da Collavechio, has been known to researchers for well over a century. Born in 1510, Alessandro de Medici was anywhere between eleven and nineteen when the detail of the frieze discussed here was painted. The rabbit with which the African cherub or puttino moro is playing is symbolically associated with propagation. This little vignette, therefore, is first and foremost an allusion to Alessandro as his father's only hope for future progeny. But considering who Allesandro was given as his wife, there is the tantalizing possibility that it is also meant to commemorate the marriage of this papal bastard to an imperial one. The significance of what the little black putto is wearing strongly suggests that this could well be the case.
For example, there are the pants or leggings showing beneath the hem of the black cherub's costume. Such leggings are seldom seen either in this style or period of painting. In any Latin dictionary, the word for legging, ocrea-ae, immediately precedes that of Ocresia-ae, which--according to the latest Oxford edition--is the name of the slave who was the mother of Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome. It could be argued that this similarity of the word ocrea-ae to that of Ocresia-ae is merely coincidental. However, like Servius Tullius, whose given name is a reminder of his "servile" origins, Alessandro was both the son of a slave and a future head of state, as well. It would seem therefore, that the parallel between these two was quite intentional especially since Servius Tullius, according to Roman mythology, had been the most ideal and just of the Roman rulers before the historical age of the Caesars. (Interestingly, despite the difficulty Florentine republicans faced in accepting Alessandro's reinstitution of Medici hegemony, they grudgingly acknowledged his sense of justice and his treatment of the poor and the underprivileged - the same moral values for which Servius had stood)
However, that reference to Servius Tullius is only viable if this little cherub was painted after the betrothal of the Emperor's daughter to the Pope's son. Any allusion in this mural to Allesandro's symbolic representation as a Roman ruler before this marriage agreement - signed in 1529 - would not have made sense.
As the son-in-law of the Holy Roman Emperor there was a distinct possibility that Alessandro de Medici could indeed ascend to such an august honor. Although the title Holy Roman Emperor was an electoral one (and the candidates, in principle, were any number of European crowned heads) the title in fact had become a Hapbsburg prerogative. Considering the low life expectancy and high child mortality of the period, the fact that Alessandro could, conceivably, succeed one day as ruler of Emperor Charles' Hapbsburg possessions must certainly have played a part in the Pope's proposal to marry his Allesandro to Margaret. On the other hand, the Emperor himself had just been married a few years earlier and the only son he would ever have was still an infant. Thus, it is quite possible that Charles saw in this matrimonial alliance an opportunity for insuring himself a dynasty should his legal heir not survive to do so. What would further tighten this allegory so carefully constructed around the word ocrea-ae, is that very similar to this aspiration of the Pope for his son it represents, Servius Tullius had been designated successor to the King of Rome at his own betrothal to the reigning monarch's daughter. Such visual charades and puns as in this interpretation of the little black putto's leggings were fairly popular during the Renaissance. We need look no further than the popular Medici "impressa" of the falcon holding a diamond ring in one of its talons as an example of how they might be put together just on the phonetic similarity of the words chosen . The motto for this particular emblem of a Falcon e diamante was Fa con Dio Amante which, translated from the Italian reads, Do all for the love of God.
So, if this play between the leggings of the cherub and Servius Tullius is acceptable, the rest of the symbolism regarding the African putto's costume falls easily into place.
In contrast to the stark nudity of the other putti, the obvious similarity of the cherub's tunic to that of the female angels, strongly suggests that an inference to cross-dressing is being made. The most famous of the classical stories relating to cross-dressing is, of course, that of Hercules and Omphale.
According to the myth, Hercules had been required to serve Queen Omphale in expiation for a murder he had committed. A lonely widow and the powerful ruler of Lydia , Omphale fell in love with him at first sight - and he with her. Far more memorable than any of the adventures Hercules undertook to rid his lover's kingdom of its enemies, are the stories told of how he wore Omphale's clothes and spun wool along with the women of the household. Just as strangely, Omphale went about in his famous lion skin and took to brandishing his massive club.
The implication that Alessandro, like Hercules, was to wrap himself in his wife Maragaret's Hapsburg identity is quite unavoidable since there can be no doubt that to maintain the patronage of his father-in-law, his politics as Duke of Florence would be dictated by Imperial interests.
Likewise, the club and lion skin Omphale appropriates from Hercules in the myth would seem to be a very definite allusion to the Emperor's expectations for his daughter. Having given her to his rather formidable aunt, Margaret of Austria, to be reared and educated, he obviously intended that she would one day play as important a role in the government of the Empire. Not only had Charles named Margaret after his aunt but the position the elder woman held as Regent and Governor General of the Netherlands would eventually become his daughter's. Because this much authority had, until this point in time, been pretty much a male prerogative, both Margarets are today studied since they are among the first women in modern history to have exercised this much political power and influence.
Because it is far more striking than even the little black cherub, what is unmistakably another important clue to this rather intriguing picture puzzle is the fact that one of the female angels has two heads. As utterly bizarre as this figure might initially strike us today, original viewers would have immediately identified it as a reference to the double headed eagle of the Imperial coat of arms. But besides confirming those assumptions regarding the Hapbsburgs already made, there is another phonetic similarity between words being exploited here. Like what was done with the latin word for legging, it is the resemblance of the name, Omphale to that of Omphalos.
According to one of the earliest Greek myths, the center (omphalos) of the earth was determined when two eagles, made to fly in opposite directions, finally met again. Quite obviously this myth is the source for the Hapbsburg arms and, as such, the choice of the character, Omphale (whose name is derived form the same Greek root) to represent the emperor's daughter is a particularly pointed one. And, of course, there's a corollary. Alessandro's African heritage - as represented in the little black cherub - is the same symbolism accorded the sable plumage of the Imperial Eagle.
Because of how many layers of meaning these symbols can have, it is quite possible that even the rabbit which we first dealt with as representative of progeny might have another meaning. The name for Spain is derived from the Berber word, "spania" which means "land of rabbits" and which the North Africans gave to the Iberian peninsula because of how many of these animals they found there. As the grandson of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile and Leon, Charles goes down in history as the first king of a united Spain. Since procreational success was thought to be primarily the responsibility of the woman, it appears that some sort of allusion is being made between the hope for Margaret's fruitfulness and the Spanish identity of the children she would bear Alessandro.
There is one other piece of symbolism in this mural that should be pointed out - the figure of the ostrich painted on the ceiling directly over that of the African cherub or putto. Scholars have observed that the ostrich was used exclusively by Giulio de Medici (Pope Clement). Counter to the tales that it ate iron and all the hyperbole that could be based on that myth, there is a far more sober reading to this emblem. Symbolic dictionaries explain that because it has wings but does not fly, the ostrich is a representation of the hypocrite, especially the kind who preaches an ideal but does not live up to it. What would make it appear that the bird is to be seen as a penitential apologia for the Pope's bastard, Alessandro, is a figure in the mural on the opposite wall. One of the young female angels is decidedly of mixed race. As in the case of the little black putto, the only other ostrich on the ceiling is positioned directly over her figure.
Despite how tightly the pieces of this particular puzzle would seem to fit, there is, of course, another reading, at least with regards to the chronology of how it was painted. Quite possibly, like his playmates, the black putto was originally depicted nudo. It was not until after June 29th, 1529 when the Pope Clement VII and Charles V signed the Treaty of Barcelona that the little fellow was dressed in the items of clothing we've looked at here. Simple enough at first glance, they are in fact symbolically packed, not just with the Pope's bald ambition for his son so arcanely or obliquely implied but with the kind of moral imperative he points out to him, as well.
Whether or not the city of Barcelona, itself, is also alluded to in all that has been discussed in the above still has to be determined. But it would be difficult to simply dismiss as mere coincidence, the tradition that it had been "founded by Hercules and built up by the Punic (African) people." Because Barcelona is where the treaty was drawn up, it is even possible that the part-mythic historic account of the origins of this great Spanish metropolis might have been the initial source for the design of this rather remarkable impressa.
Alessandro de Medici and Margaret of Austria produced no offspring together. He was assassinated some three years after their marriage. But his stint as ruler of Florence was enough for his children, although illegitimate like himself, to establish dynasties of their own. Today the most influential of the old Italian noble families descend from him as well as some of the most prestigious continental houses including a number of European crowned heads and, interestingly enough, a branch of the imperial Hapbsburgs, as well.
Hopefully, for the eternal peace of his soul, the injunction by the papal founder of this line of Medicis to his son was in turn followed by Alessandro's own numerous and 'illustrious' descendants. Only the just and moral exercise of the power they would inherit could serve as reparation for the sin of the flesh Pope Clement (Giulio de Medici) had committed while still a seventeen-year-old cardinal.
Allessandro's Children:
Although the initial reaction to the assassination on the part of the Ducal party had been to set up a regency for Alessandro's four year-old son, Giulio, they instead turned to Cosimo of the cadet branch of the family who as young man of seventeen they felt would be able to bring some equilibrium to the political instability that confronted them.
Since they were his cousins and since Cosimo had to consolidate the authority of the Medici family, Cosimo raised Alessandro's children in his own household and continued as their guardian until adulthood. Despite the awkward presence at his court of a potential pretender to the duchy of Florence, Cosimo apparently regarded his young wards with true affection.
Giulio married Lucrezia Gaetani in 1561 and a year later, Cosimo appointed him First Admiral of the Knights of San Stephano, an order especially founded to fight the Turks.
Giulio's sister, Giulia, was first married to Francesco Cantelmo, the Count of Alvito and the Duke of Popoli. When her husband died unable to give her children a few years later, Cosimo then married Giulia off in 1559 to a first cousin of his, Bernardino de Medici. Apparently Giulia's pride in her Medici ancestry was intense. In the early years of her second marriage, her insistence that she be treated at court as the equal of Cosimo's wife caused a rift between herself and Cosimo. Eventually she and her husband moved to Naples where, at an enormous expense to themselves, they acquired both the title and lands of the principality of Ottaiano.
more on Giulia and "Giulia's Portrait."
Along with her father Alessandro de Medici's uniquely racial place in history, Giulia de Medici's portrait could also prove of some importance since an apologia for her blackness forms the basis of the iconographical elements of the painting. Due more than likely to Giulia de Medici's social position as a princess and the descendant of a number of popes, whoever assisted the artist with the symbolism he used obtained it from the Neo platonic concept of God as Divine Darkness still current in the theology of the time. Probably the most readily available exposition of this particularly Franciscan brand of mysticism was St. Bonaventure's Itenarium mentis in Deum orThe Soul's Journey to God. To fully appreciate the symbolism that was attempted in this portrait it should be pointed out that the Medici were in religious state matters, officially devoted to St. Francis.
Behind Giulia on her left can be seen an ornately carved chair of state. In an 1982 article, Gabrielle Langdon, a Canadian art scholar, pointed out the artist had used the incline of the armrest to depict upwardly sloping terrain. She explained that the climbing figure she was able to discern with the help of x-ray equipment, had been meant as the spiritual aspect of the comparatively larger sleeping figure, which is a representation of Hercules. Professor Langdon maintains the scene is an allusion to the Choice of Hercules, a popular Renaissance allegory illustrating the hero on the upward path to Virtue as he disdains the attraction of Vice.
Returning to a more overtly Christian reading, it would also appear that a mountain, Monte la Verna, is in fact, also being alluded to. This geographical spot, after all, is precisely where St. Bonaventure received the inspiration to write his Itenerarium. The reason for the Saint's visit to Monte la Verna was that this was where St. Francis, during a vision of a crucified six-winged Seraph, had become a stigmatic by miraculously acquiring the wounds of Christ.
From the anecdotes regarding Alessandro's blackness and how opposition political factions tried throwing it in his face, the epithet that apparently most upset him was da Collavechio. Since moro would not have been as insulting back in the 16th century before the Battle of Lepanto, the fact that his mother, Simonetta, had subsequently married a mule driver from Collavechio was, instead, used to great advantage by his enemies who would taunt him as Alessandro da Collavechio. I do not think, therefore, that it would be reaching too far to suggest that some kind of parallelism is to be understood between colla vechio or the old hill and Monte la Verna or the Mount of Spring or New Mount. Is Giulia not pointing to the theological speculation of God as Divine Darkness or Blackness associated with the latter Monte as some kind of justification or defense of the ethnic definition of her grandmother so inextricably tied to the former hill? I would be surprised if she isn't.
The six wings of the seraph became for St. Bonaventure, the six stages of the journey through which the soul must progress. To the Renaissance mentality so infatuated with Greco Roman imagery, the cameo of Mercury who also has six wings: two on his heels, the two of his caduceus or staff and the pair on his helmet is, therefore, a classical reference to the Seraph of St. Francis. Dr. Langdon's supposition that the medal of Bacchus Giulia so instructively point to is a Neo platonic allusion is not only accurate, it is the key to understanding the iconographical program around which this portrait was painted. The patristic source of St. Bonaventure's ideas is none other than Dionysius the Aereopagite. Dionysius, considering Giulia's African ancestry, is extremely important since he is one of the earliest of the Church's teachers to describe God as the...Ineffable and Divine Darkness. Since Bacchus is simply the Roman version of the Greek Dionysius, the medallion is obviously meant to remind the viewer of the beatific vision which is the goal, the very objective of every soul as explained in St. Bonaventure's "Itenerarium."
In summary, this painting offers a surprising theological way of thinking about blackness (just as more Aristotelian references to God have reinforced archetypes of whiteness since the Age of Enlightenment.) As one of the first persons of colour in modern history whose response to racism has been recorded, Giulia de Medici's magisterial pronouncement is of utmost importance to those of us in the new world who are still suffering from the results of this ugly social phenomenon. Furthermore, because of Giulia de Medici's relation to the centers of temporal and spiritual power at the time, the defense she prepared for herself was the most authoritative. She employed a Neo platonic premise which is canonically irreproachable even by those standards which are adhered to by the most conservative curriculum advisers today. Furthermore, whatever interest is triggered by the theological mysticism that informs this painting, it should not create the kind of academic controversy more Afro Centric ideas tend to provoke. For like St. Bonaventure's "Itenerarium" which is the key to this particular painting by Allori, there are centuries of western religious speculation that evolved precisely along these lines.
This portrait of Giulia de Medici could easily become in the field of Black Studies, a very significant work. Instead of being simply a portrait of an Italian princess whose identity as a quadroon is interesting, it shows her breathtaking reaction to whatever apprehensions she might have felt regarding her African descent With whatever theological authority she can claim, she reminds her contemporaries that God, in His Ineffable Unknowability, is also Black.
The greater majority of the noble houses of Italy can today trace their ancestry back to Alessandro de Medici. And, as shown in the two lines of descent to the Hapsburgs drawn up below, so can a number of other princely families of Europe:
Giulio de Medici, (Allessandro's son) Knight Commander of the Gallery of St.
Stephen m. Lucrezia, Countess Gaetani
!
Cosimo de Medici (illegitimate) m. Lucrezia (II), Countess Gaetani
!
Angelica de Medici m. Gianpetro, Count Altemps
!
Maria Cristina, Countess Altemps m. 1646 Ipollito, Duke Lante della Rovere
!
Antonio, Duke Lante m. 1682 Angelique, Princesse de La Tremouille
!
Marie Anne Lante m. Jean Baptiste, Duke of Croy Havre
!
Louis, Duke of Croy Havre m. 1736 Marie Louise, Princess of Montmorency Luxembourg
!
Joseph, Duke of Croy Havre m. 1762 Adelaide, Princess of Croy Solre
!
Adelaide, Duchess of Croy Havre m. 1788 Emanuel, Prince of Croy Solre
!
Constance, Princess of Croy Solre m. 1810 Ferdinand, Duke of Croy
!
Augusta, Duchess of Croy m. 1836 Alfred, Prince of Salm Salm
!
Alfred, Prince of Salm Salm m. 1869 Rosa, Countess Lutzow
!
Emanuel, Prince of Salm Salm m. 1902 Christina von Hapsburg, Archduchess of Austria
!
Rosemary, Princess of Salm Salm m. 1926 Hubert Salvator von Hapsburg, Archduke of Austria
ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF ALESSANDRO'S DESCENT:
Joseph, Duke of Croy Havre m. 1762 Adelaide, Princess of Croy Solre
!
Amalie, Duchess of Croy Havre m. 1790 Charles, Marquis of Conflans
!
Amalie de Conflans m. 1823 Eugene, Prince of Ligne
!
Henri, Prince of Ligne m. 1851 Marguerite, Countess of Talleyrand Perigord
!
Ernest Louis, Prince of Ligne m. 1887 Diane Marchioness of Cosse Brissac
!
Eugene, Prince of Ligne m. 1917 Phillipine, Princess Noailles
!
Yolanda, Princess of Ligne m. 1950 Karl von Hapsburg, Archduke of Austria
ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF ALESSANDRO'S DESCENT:
Giulio de Medici, Knight Commander of the Gallery of St.
Stephen m. Lucrezia, Countess Gaetani
!
Cosimo de Medici (illegitimate) m. Lucrezia, Countess Gaetani
!
Angelica de Medici m. Gianpetro, Count Altemps
!
Maria Cristina, Countess Altemps m. 1646 Ipollito, Duke Lante della Rovere
!
Antonio, Duke Lante m. 1682 Angelique, Princesse de La Tremouille
!
Luigi, Duke Lante m. Angela, Princess Vaini
!
Fillipo, Duke Lante m. Faustina, Marchioness Caprianca
!
Maria Christina Lante m. Averado, Duke Salviati
!
Anna Maria Salviati m. Marcantonio , Prince Borghese
!
Camillo, Prince Borghese m. 1803 Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's Sister
ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF ALESSANDRO'S DESCENT:
Marie Anne Lante m. Jean Baptiste, Duke of Croy Havre
!
Adelaide, Croy Havre m. Emanuel, Prince of Croy Solre
!
Constance, Princess of Croy Solre m. 1810 Ferdinand of Croy Solre
!
Juste Marie, Prince of Croy m. 1854 Marie, Countess Ursel
!
Charles, Prince of Croy m. 1896 Matilda, Countess Robiano
!
Marie Imaculee m. 1926 Thiery, count of Limburg Stirum
!
Evrard, Count of Limburg Stirum m. 1957 Helen,
Princess of France daughter of the Count of Paris
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Researched and Written by Mario de Valdes y Cocom an historian of the African diaspora.
Friday, September 08, 2006
QUEEN CHARLOTTE
With features as conspicuously Negroid as they were reputed to be by her contemporaries, it is no wonder that the black community, both in the U.S. and throughout the British Commonwealth, have rallied around pictures of Queen Charlotte for generations. They have pointed out the physiological traits that so obviously identify the ethnic strain of the young woman who, at first glance, looks almost anomalous, portrayed as she usually is, in the sumptuous splendour of her coronation robes.
Queen Charlotte, wife of the English King George III (1738-1820), was directly descended from Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a black branch of the Portuguese Royal House. The riddle of Queen Charlotte's African ancestry was solved as a result of an earlier investigation into the black magi featured in 15th century Flemish paintings. Two art historians had suggested that the black magi must have been portraits of actual contemporary people (since the artist, without seeing them, would not have been aware of the subtleties in colouring and facial bone structure of quadroons or octoroons which these figures invariably represented) Enough evidence was accumulated to propose that the models for the black magi were, in all probability, members of the Portuguese de Sousa family. (Several de Sousas had in fact traveled to the Netherlands when their cousin, the Princess Isabella went there to marry the Grand Duke, Philip the Good of Burgundy in the year 1429.)
Six different lines can be traced from English Queen Charlotte back to Margarita de Castro y Sousa, in a gene pool which because of royal inbreeding was already minuscule, thus explaining the Queen's unmistakable African appearance.
Queen Charlotte's Portrait:
The Negroid characteristics of the Queen's portraits certainly had political significance since artists of that period were expected to play down, soften or even obliterate undesirable features in a subjects's face. Sir Allan Ramsay was the artist responsible for the majority of the paintings of the Queen and his representations of her were the most decidedly African of all her portraits. Ramsey was an anti-slavery intellectual of his day. He also married the niece of Lord Mansfield, the English judge whose 1772 decision was the first in a series of rulings that finally ended slavery in the British Empire. It should be noted too that by the time Sir Ramsay was commissioned to do his first portrait of the Queen, he was already , by marriage, uncle to Dido Elizabeth Lindsay, the black grand niece of Lord Mansfield.
Thus, from just a cursory look at the social awareness and political activism at that level of English society, it would be surprising if the Queen's negroid physiogomy was of no significance to the Abolitionist movement.
Lord Mansfield's black grand niece, for example, Ms. Lindsay, was the subject of at least two formal full sized portraits. Obviously prompted by or meant to appeal to abolitionist sympathies, they depicted the celebrated friendship between herself and her white cousin, Elizabeth Murray, another member of the Mansfield family. One of the artists was none other than Zoffany, the court painter to the royal family, for whom the Queen had sat on a number of occasions.
It is perhaps because of this fairly obvious case of propagandistic portraiture that makes one suspect that Queen Charlotte's coronation picture, copies of which were sent out to the colonies, signified a specific stance on slavery held, at least, by that circle of the English intelligencia to which Allan Ramsay, the painter belonged.
For the initial work into Queen Charlotte's genealogy, a debt of gratitude is owed the History Department of McGill University. It was the director of the Burney Project (Fanny Burney, the prolific 19th century British diarist, had been secretary to the Queen), Dr. Joyce Hemlow, who obtained from Olwen Hedly, the most recent biographer of the Queen Charlotte (1975), at least half a dozen quotes by her contemporaries regarding her negroid features. Because of its "scientific" source, the most valuable of Dr. Hedley's references would, probably, be the one published in the autobiography of the Queen's personal physician, Baron Stockmar, where he described her as having "...a true mulatto face."
Perhaps the most literary of these allusions to her African appearance, however, can be found in the poem penned to her on the occasion of her wedding to George III and the Coronation celebration that immediately followed.
Descended from the warlike Vandal race,
She still preserves that title in her face.
Tho' shone their triumphs o'er Numidia's plain,
And and Alusian fields their name retain;
They but subdued the southern world with arms,
She conquers still with her triumphant charms,
O! born for rule, - to whose victorious brow
The greatest monarch of the north must bow.
Finally, it should be noted that the Royal Household itself, at the time of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, referred to both her Asian and African bloodlines in an apologia it published defending her position as head of the Commonwealth.
More about Research into the Black Magi:
In the Flemish masterpieces depicting the Adoration of the Magi, the imagery of the black de Sousas had been utilized as both religious and political propaganda to support Portugal's expansion into Africa. In addition, the Flemish artists had drawn from a vocabulary of blackness which, probably due to the Reformation and the Enlightenment, has long since been forgotten. There was a wealth of positive symbolism that had been attributed to the black African figure during the Middle Ages. Incredible as it would seem to us today, such images had been used to represent not only Our Lady - evidence of which can be found in the cult of the Black Madonna that once proliferated in Europe - but in heraldic traditions, the Saviour and God the Father, Himself.
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Researched and Written by Mario de Valdes y Cocom, an historian of the African diaspora.
SIGILLUM SECRETUM
(Secret Seal)
On the image of the Blackamoor in European Heraldry
(a preliminary proposal for an iconographical study)
by
Mario de Valdes y Cocom
Considering the deep roots of Christianity in the cultural experience of the African American community, it is only natural that even in the most cursory of discussions on Black history, the hope always is raised of discovering Christ as a man of colour. Moreover, in this global village of television and transatlantic travel, the standard Euro-centric portrayal of Christ is both anomalous and anachronistic, particularly in these racially sensitized times.
It might therefore prove a great source of spiritual strength and psychological affirmation for those of us of African descent if a relatively unknown and forgotten medieval European tradition regarding the image of the black was reconstructed for all to see and share.
What I am referring to are the coat of arms of the blackamoor which proliferated in both the private and civic European escutcheons (coat of arms) throughout the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries.
Due likely to the tradition attached to Sardinia's arms, these insignia have been all too facilely explained as the grizzly prize of some crusader conquest. The four African heads each displayed in one of the four quarters created by the cross on the shield are referred to by an early motto associated with this island's crest as 'trophea.' The traditional explanation is they represent the four Moorish emirs who were defeated by a king of Aragon sometime in the 11th century. (The possibility of a more probable approach to these insignia will be raised further on.) Such an interpretation would, of course, be more than welcome today, especially in the face of establishment attempts to portray as white the Islamic power that was able to withstand three successive waves of European invasions.
And, a common corollary to this negative view was the African figure became a symbol of evil, universal or personal, that had to be subjugated or vanquished. Given the economic/political positions of those with the right to bear arms, the hold that heraldry has had on the imagination of the West has been a very powerful one and this particular perception of the blackamoor as a symbol of the negative has undoubtedly played an enormous part in the propagation of racism.
The Imagery of St. Maurice
Modern specialists in the science of heraldry suspect, however, that this blazon (coat of arms) of the blackamoor is instead the very opposite of a negative symbol. In the last decade or two it has been pointed out that the moor's head quite possibly could have referred to St. Maurice, the black patron saint of the Holy Roman Empire from the beginning of the 10th century.
Because of his name and native land, St. Maurice had been portrayed as black ever since the 12th century. The insignia of the black head, in a great many instances, was probably meant to represent this soldier saint since a majority of the arms awarded were knightly or military. With 6,666 of his African compatriots, St. Maurice had chosen martyrdom rather than deny his allegiance to his Lord and Saviour, thereby creating for the Christian world an image of the Church Militant that was as impressive numerically as it was colourwise.
Here, no doubt, is a major reason why St. Maurice would become the champion of the old Roman church and an opposition symbol to the growing influence of Luther and Calvin. The fact that he was of the same race as the Ethiopian baptized by St. Philip in Acts of the Apostles was undoubtedly an important element to his significance as well. Since this figure from the New Testament was read as a personification of the Gentile world in its entirety, the complexion of St. Maurice and his Theban Legion (the number of which signified an infinite contingent) was also understood as a representation of the Church's universality - a dogmatic ideal no longer tolerated by the Reformation's nationalism. Furthermore, it cannot be coincidental that the most powerful of the German princes to remain within the Catholic fold, the archbishop Albrecht von Brandenburg, not only dedicated practically all the major institutions under his jurisdiction to St. Maurice but in what is today one of the most important paintings of the Renaissance, had himself portrayed in Sacred Conversation with him. Even more blatant was the action taken by Emanual Philibert, Duke of Savoy. In 1572 he organized the order of St. Maurice. The papal promulgation published at its institution declared quite unequivocally that the sole purpose for this knighthood was to combat of the Reformation. The order still exist exists although it has now combined with the Order of St. Lazarus. The white trefoiled cross of the combined order belongs to the former.
The particular symbol of St. Maurice's blackness that must have most antagonized the Protestant faction, however, was the one regarding the mystery of Papal authority. Scholars have been able to show, for example, that in the theological debates of this period, even the abstract adjectives, black and white, were defiantly acknowledged by apologists of both stripes to represent the Church and the Reformers respectively.
Prester John
In addition to St. Maurice, there is also another figure connected to the blackamoor coat of arms. It is the semi-mythical Negus (emperor) of Ethiopia, Prester John. To Otto von Freising an Imperial Hohenstauffen Prince Bishop of the 12th century who was tired and torn by the endless struggle between Church and State, this black man who was both priest and king and ruled a land of peace and plenty at the edge of the world became the personification of the ideal state. To this day the arms of the see of Freising is the bust of a crowned blackamoor.
Because of their ethnic and geographic origins, it is likely that St. Maurice and his Theban Legion became associated with Prester John as the ideal soldiers for the ideal state. It should be pointed out, furthermore, that, heraldically, since he was the only monarch who could claim the 'Sang Real' or the 'Royal Blood' of Christ because of his descent from Solomon, Prester John was the only individual deemed worthy of the right to bear as arms the image of the Crucifix. Even the earring traditionally worn by the blackamoor is a reference to this sacred privilege.
The Golden Ring in the Blackamoor's Ear
To understand how these two objects are related to each other--the earring and the image of the Crucifix--we must refer back to the Old Testament. In the Book of Leviticus can be found an ordinance describing the ritual ear piercing of any slave who chooses to continue in his master's service after being granted his freedom. Since one of the most important of all Ethiopian royal titles was "Slave of the Cross," the golden ring in the blackamoor's ear was probably meant to be interpreted as a deeply devotional and--considering the belief in the Bible as the Word of God--a highly rhetorical symbol.
Ethiopia and the Holy Grail
Due also to the age-old belief that the Ark of the Covenant had been hidden in Ethiopia, the great epics of the Arthurian cycle transformed the Ethiopian emperor into the founder of the Grail dynasty and the ancestor, nine generations later, of the only knight of the Round Table who would achieve the Quest, Sir Galahad. It would appear that the long-standing confusion over whether the Holy Grail was a cup or a stone was a deliberate one. Considering the opportunity afforded by these Ethiopian traditions, medieval writers were able to theologically fuse together the symbols of both the Old and the New Testament: the Tablet of the Law and the Chalice.
SIGILLUM SECRETUM
Part II Divine Darkness
In the middle of the 14th century, one of the most profound examples of the symbol of the blackamoor can be seen in the use of this image to represent Christ. It is clear from the documentation we have for the city of Lauingen in Germany, for example, that at about this time, the city's seal with the head of Christ wearing a crown of thorns is transformed to the head of a blackamoor wearing a golden crown. That the latter insignia is meant to represent the former is quite obvious from the accompanying inscriptions. One of the earlier ones read: "Sigillum civium de Lougingin" (seal of the city of Lauingen), while a later version clearly explains itself as the "Sigillum secretum civitatis palatinae Lavgingen (secret seal of the palatinate city of Lauingen)."
A German heraldic scholar writing before World War II offered two other reasons for a similar coats of arms. He pointed out that Ethiop (sun burnt) the black was a sun sign and therefore a symbol of divinity that could alternately be used for the Son of God or the Son of Man. He also pointed out that from what we know of the cult of the Black Madonna, the blazon of the blackamoor queen was a reference to Mary, the Queen of Heaven or her prefiguration as the Queen of Sheba and that the male versions of these insignia were therefore references to her Son.
The discovery of this particular seal was especially surprising to me since I had taken for granted that it was either another reference to Prester John or, even more likely, to Balthazar, the black Wise man of the Epiphany who has, iconographically, almost always been treated as a king. Because his gift of myrrh prophesied not only Our Lord's death but, most importantly, His Resurrection and the proof, therefore, of His divinity, the awe Balthazar's blackness inspired must have had a powerful impression on the science of heraldry. A coat of Arms that is apparently derived from the same theological source as that of the city of Lavingen belongs to the Cruse or Cross family of France. Since cockle shells are so liturgically associated with the sacrement of baptism, their number here probably signifies the three nails of the Crucifixion while the women, in all likelyhood, are representations of Mary and the Queen of Sheba.
The Arms of King Balthazar
No more graphic a demonstration of the African figure as a symbol of the sun is to be found than in the arms ascribed to King Balthazar. Initially this had posed a problem for me since the ethnic background of this Wise Man, to my mind, was simply not enough of a reason for this heraldic device. It was not until coming upon an early text describing his coat of arms as that of the sun that I at last realized what the blackamoor on Balthazar's livery signified. Since King Melchior bore a field of stars and King Kaspar, the moon, it is fairly obvious that as an allusion, no doubt, to the celestial phenomenon which had guided them to Bethlehem, the original arms of the Magi had been the sun, the moon and the stars. I do not think it would be unreasonable to suppose that for whatever theological line of reasoning, the heraldic insignia of both Balthazar and the city of Lauingen had been changed at the same point in history.
Blackness as an Allusion to God
Perhaps even more remarkable, especially from our perspective today, is evidence which would suggest that in the language of heraldry, the blackamoor could be an allusion to God Himself. The most obvious of these examples are to be found in the arms of the city of Coburg, the Kob family of Nuremberg and the Pucci of Florence. Since these three names are derived from that of Jacob (Coburg=Jacoburg, Kob=Jakob, Pucci=Jacopucci), the clue is to be found in the Book of Genesis. Very much along the lines of the old Hebrew injunction against uttering the Holy Name, it was the second century theologian, Dionysius the Aereopagite, who first alluded to God as, "The Divine Darkness".
In the passage relating the changing of his name to that of Israel, Jacob discovers that the dark spirit he has wrestled with all night long is none other than God in the impenetrable image of His infinite Self. The fact that the name, James, is nothing other than a variant of Jacob, might well provide us with the significance for the arms of Sardinia I described earlier since it is to the Aragonese king, James 1, that their use can first be traced.
Blackness as Wisdom
One of the most dramatic and, certainly, most graphic uses of blackness as wisdom can be seen in the portrayal of the Good Thief from a number of 15th century Flemish masterpieces depicting the Crucifixion. For the ability to recognize his Saviour's spiritual supremacy beneath the harsh reality of the Cross, St. Dismas is not only painted as an African, he is painted blindfolded as well. The blindfold on certain blackamoor coat of arms, therefore, is not a mistakenly placed headband or torse, the standard headpiece of this specific symbol when a crown is not called for. This blazon is, instead, an exhortation or, more precisely, a divine demand that we not only respond to the weakest and most helpless of our neighbours as we would Our Lord but, like St. Dismas, that we do so even while in the death throes of our own personal crucifixions. Interestingly enough, a number of early theologians writing on this subject, have attributed to the Black Wise Man's colour the same kind of reasoning from which St. Dismas would derive his doubly dark imagery; his ability to recognize the Messiah in a lowly manger.
The social gospel so strikingly symbolized by this example of the blackamoor blazon is also, interestingly enough, quite implicit in even its most negative use-- that of the vanquished infidel. From what is known regarding the popularity of the Charlemagnian epics during the latter middle ages, we can assume that this image was, in all probability, associated with Marsile, the black heathen king who, as the enemy of all Christendom, was Charlemagne's paramount opponent. Offered baptism at his defeat, Marsile had instead chosen death rather than accept a faith whose adherents he scornfully mocked and condemned for their immoral and reprehensible treatment of the poor. An image that was so scathing a reminder of a community's responsibility to its less fortunate could, therefore, have only been perceived as a positive one.
The relationship of the black image to the concept of justice was nowhere more politically utilized than with the Holy Roman emperors of the Hohenstauffern dynasty. Indeed, it would appear that the sable blazon of the imperial eagle and that of the moor's head were meant to be perceived as synonymous. The simple headbands worn by both are, as a matter of fact, identical and, interestingly enough, nothing less, despite the simplicity of the design, than the imperial diadem' of ancient Rome. Also interesting is the fantastic coat of arms attributed to Ethiopia by the heralds of the middle ages. For like the bicephalic bird of the Holy Roman Empire, Ethiopia bore a 'v' shaped emblem with a blackamoor's head 'torsed' at the end of each arm.
This parallelism between both sets of heads can, of course, be explained by the "rex / sacerdos" argument which occupied the very centre of the political stage during this particular period of history. To both the Pope who preached the imperial nature of his sanctified position and the emperor, Frederick II, who believed in the priestliness of his own power, the figure of the African priest king, Prester John, became an almost magical icon politically. If we can interpret the double-headed eagle represented the claims of both the church and the state, it would be quite logical to surmise that the reason why Ethiopia's arms were conceived as double-headed is due to the belief already mentioned that the Negus (emperor) exercised the prerogatives of both priest and king.
As Joseph Campbell has pointed out, it was to this African figure that European literature first attributed the very concept of popular justice. Indeed, while the Church showed off his famous letter of introduction and circulated copies of it to the Christian world, rumors in Frederick's own lifetime made him an intimate friend of this semi-mythical king. According to popular belief, for instance, Prester John had presented him with armor made of asbestos, the elixir of youth, a ring of invisibility and, most precious of all, the philosopher's stone.
Because they are described in the 'Tristam und Isult' cycles, the arms of Sir Pallamedes, the Moorish prince who becomes a knight of the Round Table, have received a certain amount of scholarly attention. Chequered in black and white, this highly contrasting design would appear to be nothing more than perhaps the most abstract icon of those dualities already pointed to, such as God and Jacob (Jacquelado is the word for checkered in Spanish), or Church and State. Instead of his coat armour, it is the body of Sir Fierfitz Angevin, the black knight from Eschenbach's 'Parzival' that is patterned in a piebald motif. The fact that the poet likens Fierfitz's skin to a parchment with writing is what expands this symbol to its most encompassing parameters.
To the Greeks, Pallamedes, the mythological figure from whom Sir Tristam's Moorish companion derives his name, was commemorated as the inventor of writing, counting, weighing and measuring and the games of the chessboard. Since his name translates as 'Ancient Wisdom', it has been suggested that all dualistic tensions were intended to be nuanced; from the most simple 'yes or no', 'O or I' to the most sophisticated of Parmenedes' models regarding 'The I and the Thou' or 'The One and the Many'. Obviously playing with the same kind of bifurcated symbolism as the Hohenstauffern eagle or the two headed branch of Ethiopia, the writer of the prose Tristam recounts that of all the knights of the Round Table, Sir Pallamedes was the only one who wore two swords. Whether as a reference to Pallamedes' name or the political wisdom Prester John stood for, or, perhaps, as a conflation of both, it is interesting that the blackamoor's head was one of the earliest watermarks in the history of paper making. Examples collected date from about 1380 to 1460.
Another possible reason for the imagery of Sir Pallamedes could well have been a rather ironic geo-political one. During the dark ages the culture of the Roman empire had, for the most part, been fairly obliterated. During the Crusades, western intellectuals became all too aware that it was their adversaries they would have to turn to for any advance in their educational systems since the moslem world had become the reservoir of classical Greco Roman learning. Due to the Saracen sages with which Frederick II surrounded himself, for example, Sicily developed into one of the most important intellectual centers of Europe, spreading the scholarship that had been derived from Arab translations. His court was so Islamic in its splendor that not only in the Midde East but throughout Europe he was referred to as 'Sultan.'
Since the Fatimid dynasty of Egypt during the 11th and 12th centuries had been of Sudanese extraction, and because their armed forces during this period had been augmented by a compliment of fifty thousand black troops a year, it should not be too difficult to understand how the image of the African had come to be associated, like Sir Pallamedes, with "ancient wisdom."
SIGILLUM SECRETUM
Part III Sable
Besides this possible reference to Prester John, another reason for the black blazon of the imperial eagle is to be found in the rules and regulations governing the use of 'metals' and 'tinctures' in coat armour.
Following the classical Greek analysis of light and colour, black and white were considered the two primaries since the interplay between light and dark is what was held to produce the spectrum. Furthermore, white, or more accurately, light, was not defined as a colour or 'tincture' but as the gold or the silver which, to this day, are still the only options for the term 'metal' in the language of heraldry. Black, therefore, was considered the most important of colours, ranking above the red, blue and green standardly referred to as 'tinctures'.
Thirteenth century texts explaining the imperial insignia go even further. Because of medieval conceptions of the absorption of light by darkness, the writers theorized that within the color black was contained all the light or the white it had displaced.
This is obviously the reason why when the ruby is substituted for red or 'gules' and the emerald for green or 'vert' according to the traditions of gemnological blazonry, it is nothing other than the diamond that stands for 'sable'. In all probability, it is also this line of reasoning that contributed to the cult of the Black Madonna. For, having borne the Light of Creation within her very womb, the devotion to the Mother of God as the (coal) black Queen of Heaven is a superb example of how this law of physics was at one time interpreted.
According to the early heralds, the black eagle on a field of gold translated quite literally to, "As God is in Heaven so is the Emperor on Earth". The colour of its outspread wings was explicitly said to symbolize the embodiment or the materialization of light. Furthermore, since it was also held that the dark, by its interaction with the light is what produced the spectrum, the colour black apparently came to represent the intermediary position a divine rights monarch maintained between his God and his people. If the eagle, therefore, was the zoomorphic symbol of these ideas, the blackamoor in Hohenstauffern Europe could only have been interpreted as their anthropomorphic equivalent. Indeed, there is another explanation for the imperial eagle's blackness that bears this out. As the most powerful of birds flying so close to the sun, it, like the Ethiop, was regarded as a solar symbol.
Perhaps because it is so recent and therefore so comparatively easier to interpret, one of the more exciting examples of the blackamoor as a symbol of the Redeemer is the one to be found in an insignia designed by Pope Pius VII in the early part of the last century. Commonly referred to as the Moretto, it was awarded to the Princes of the Academy of St. Luke, a class of nobles created exclusively for artists by the Holy See in recognition of their life's work and contributions to the field. It is in the age old tradition that St. Luke once painted a portrait of the Infant Jesus where the key to the symbolism of this Papal decoration can be found. The fact that St. Luke is also an evangelist, is evidence enough that at least, allegorically, he had succeeded in the challenge which, as a true artist, he would, of course, have had to confront--that of conveying in his painting the divine reality incarnate in the form of a human child. As clearly then as the Moretto or, in English, the Little Moor is a metaphor for the incarnate God St. Luke portrayed, so too is the implied challenge to the artist: to portray for the world the Divinity nascent in it.
It is this last example in particular which leads me to think that the blackamoor figured candelabra dating back a century or two earlier was meant to be seen in this light. Instead of another embarrassing icon like the lawn jockey or the Aunt Jemima cookie jar--those examples of main stream Americana which many of us find so embarrassing--this classic European 'object d'art' was probably intended either as an injunction or a blessing. And, from what I have already pointed out regarding the imagery of St. Maurice, perhaps the most negative significance they might have had is that they were also intended as Counter-Reformation propaganda.
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What I hope I have, at least, succeeded in providing here is the outline for a study which, even though based on so arcane and romantically European a tradition as heraldry, could nevertheless prove a great deal more revolutionary than any of the more 'politically correct' approaches to black history undertaken thus far.
For if this was the visual language that once articulated or signified the most important of the spiritual, cultural and political aspirations of the West, it would not be too difficult to imagine the kind of impact such a primer or catechism of positive black symbolism could have today on those whose self imagery has been so consistently and so systematically destroyed by the racism of our more recent past.
Today, one of the few vestiges that remain of this medieval mysticism can be found in the colour of the robes we wear at graduation--that right of passage by which society declares us to be 'educated'--and the robes of those who make decisions regarding our legal affairs. Although clerical garb might be interpreted as the rejection of worldly comforts and benefits, it is, therefore, a mark of the wearer's more profound pursuit as well. And, as every woman knows, it is the secret of the little black basic which can add immeasurably to her air of sophistication.
Mario Valdes
Copyright © 1992
The Africans of Philippines
We have all heard how the Anus left Kush to spread out unto the ancient world and created the first universal civilization.
Those same Anus were the first builders of ancient Egypt and were the progenitors of the most famous and ancient of the Egyptians like Isis, Osiris, Imhotep , etc.
Arising from the Nile river valley, those Anus crossed over to the levant as the Natufians, and continued on to Andamans Island in India, Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia, Philipines, Cambodia, Vietnam.
Those that decipher the codes of the genes agree that there were several universe-encompassing movements by peoples from Africa.
Some say that those early Africans are no longer Africans by the dint of the passage of time. Yet those Anus still remain black skin, with curly to frizzy hair just like most Africans living on the continent, today.
They say their blackness no longer denotes that they were once African Anus, claiming instead that it indicates tropical adaptation.
As if all genetic evolution is not a result of adaptation. As if the melanine making gene and the curly hair no longer denote the consanguinity of black kindreds the world over.
They discount the fact that the African Anu had left Africa as a black man, with curly hair and doliocephalic skulls, and had continued on as such to this very day.
They say their genes have changed into Australasians, and “melajibberish”. Fancy words without meaning. Exposing the vacuity of its proponents.
We have had all sorts of racialist and racists sciences in the past. We have had racialist misinterpretations and distortions before. Yet, again, they will be unmasked in their newer forms and dimensions.
The pictures I present here today are culled from the BBC News site. Look with your own eyes and behold the ancient Africans of Philipines. Let the sensible sensate, let the sleeper sleep.
Lord knows that the leopard does not change its spots. And the Ethiopian will never change his skin.
PLS: Those black Philippinos are known as Agats. The Agats, (children of the Anus) are oppressed just like the black populations (children of the Anus) of the Americas and Africas.
According to Runoko Rashidi, “Black Untouchables of India,” pub. by Clarity Press; Author V.T. Rajshekar, R. Rashidi, Y.N. Kly; The Agta were a large population about the time that the first Spanish settlers arrived in the Philipines.
Today, the Agta live in Negros and the Northern Islands and are lesser in numbers, while the Malay Philipinoes dominate much of the region.
Today, Africa is under imperialistic domination, the Africa-Americans are fighting economic strangulation, and Egypt is the capital of the Arab league.
Yet what goes around, will come around. Surely!
Monday, August 28, 2006
Origins of Evil (Black Devils) ...The story that has never been told...
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The origins of humankind are found in the Ancient Land of Kush (Ethiopia)
the Garden of Eden in the Bible (Genesis 2:13) which is also referred to in
ancient text as "The Land of the Gods" and "The Heartland of African Civilization".
At one time in remote antiquity, the ancient land known today as Ethiopia
included all that land known as Africa, including parts Asia (Hindu-Kush), and
the Middle East (Yemen, Israel and Palestine) during that time
when the southern portion of the Atlantic Ocean was known as the Ethiopian Ocean.
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Also,during the time of the Sumerians (Black Headed Ones), Anu,Enki,Elul,Ninkharsag or
the Annunaki(sons of Anu (which resembles On the ancient name of the egyptian city of Heliopolis). Heliopolis (Anu)is the oldest sacred district in Egypt, it became the religious centre of pharaonic culture
in the mid 4th millenium B.C. In that ancient religious capital was developped the "Heliopolitan Theology"
of a Sun god(Ra or Atum,) emerging from "Chaotic Waters (Nun)". Ra and Shu (wind),Tefnut (Rain), Geb (Earth), Nut (Sky),Osiris,Isis,Seth, Nephtys & Horus(resurrected Osiris)* are the other Gods.
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It was said: in Ancient Kush (Ethiopia), that the Gods-Walked-Earth-in-Human-Form and
worshipped The Amen (The One-God Who Exists But Cannot Be Seen) in that great ancient
Holy City located at the 4th Cataract that is known today as Gerbal Berkal. African-centered
Christianity divorced Eurocentric Christianity over the interpretation of the Monophysite Doctrine
(God-In-Flesh): Ethiopian-Egyptians believed that when God manifested, in flesh, that man
becomes a Living Mortal God... while Euro-centric Christianity believed that when God
manifests in flesh, two separate beings exist side-by-side, inside man...Divine and human. The
ancient teachings about Eternal Life and Resurrection existed in ancient Kush-Kmt thousands of
years before the man they call Jesus the Christ was said to have existed. The story of The Black
Madonna and Child is rooted in remote Ethiopian-Egyptian antiquity.
The Black Madonna
The Ethiopian-Egyptian Mother (St. Maryum Sion) and Child (The Black Messiah) is the
Original Black Madonna and Child. The European Mother Mary and Child is based on the
African icon. In modern day Ethiopia, The Black Madonna is called St. Maryum Sion (Holy
Mother of Zion); Christians and Catholics call our Divine Mother... "Mary, Mother of God."
One should note however that the word Meri (spelled Mary by Europeans) is an ancient
Ethio-Egyptian name. This clearly reveals how ancient Africa influenced Eurocentric religions.
Egypt was The Light of the World...but Kush (Ethiopia) was the Light in Egypt's Eyes...this is
the story that has never been told. The Black Madonna and her Little Black Baby were
worshipped in Europe long before the slave trade, and continue to be worshiped until this very
day in many different forms and by many different names: For example, in Russia She is
known as Our Lady of Kazan, and in Poland, Our Lady of Chezstachovia. Few people are
aware that when communism ended in Russia in 1993, the first thing the Russian people did
was to construct a $3 million dollar cathedral on the Red Square, dedicated to "Our Lady of
Kazan," the Black Madonna and Child. France has an extraordinary amount of Black Virgins,
perhaps more than any other nation. The truth of the Ethio-Egyptian Black Madonna and her
Black nappy-haired baby, has yet to be told.
Names of St. Marym Sion
Our Lady of Montserrat; The Black
Beloved Lady; Santa Maria, ora
pro Anglia; Our Lady for the
Preservation; Our Lady of Hal;
Virgin de Copobana; Jemanja;
Our Lady of Czestochowa; Our
Lady of Kazan; Our Lady of
Altotting; Our Lady of Loretto; Our
Lady of Dublin; La MAadonna di
Montenero; La Madonna Mora;
Our Lady of Guadalupe; Our Lady
of the Phillipines; Our Lady of
Kursk; La Donna della Verita (Our
Lady of Truth): Isis/Auset.
Countries Where She is Worshipped
Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil,
Canada, Costa Rica,
Czechoslovakia, Ecuador,
Ethiopia-Egypt (home of original
Black Virgin), England, France
(who has more Black Virgin
sites than any other country),
Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy,
Lithuania, Malta, Mexico, The
Netherlands, The Phillipines,
Poland, Portugal (the slave
capital of the world), Romania,
Russia, Spain, Switzerland,
Turkey, USA.
NOW TRY TO READ BETWEEN THE LINES WHEN YOU WATCH
"THE DAVINCI CODE" AND WHO THESE SECRET SOCIETIES
WORSHIP WHETER IT'S OPUS DEI OR THE PRIORY OF SION
THEY ARE ALL DISCIPLES OF "SUN CULTS" AND IDOLATERS !
IN CASE YOU DON'T READ ANY OF MY POSTS...READ "THE 2 BABYLON'S" AND
"THE WORLD'S 16 CRUCIFIED SAVIOURS"
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