Pietro da Cortona
Pietro da Cortona was an Italian Baroque painter and architect. Along with his contemporaries and rivals Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini, he was one of the key figures in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture, he was an important designer of interior decorations. He was born Pietro Berrettini, but is known by the name of his native town of Cortona in Tuscany, he worked in Rome and Florence. He is best known for his frescoed ceilings such as the vault of the salone or main salon of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome and carried out extensive painting and decorative schemes for the Medici family in Florence and for the Oratorian fathers at the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome, he painted numerous canvases. Only a limited number of his architectural projects were built but nonetheless they are as distinctive and as inventive as those of his rivals. Berrettini was born into a family of artisans and masons, in Cortona a town in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, he trained in painting in Florence under Andrea Commodi, but soon he departed for Rome at around 1612/3, where he joined the studio of Baccio Ciarpi.
He was involved in fresco decorations at the Palazzo Mattei in 1622-3 under the direction of Agostino Ciampelli and Cardinal Orsini had commissioned from him an Adoration of the Shepherds for San Salvatore in Lauro. In Rome, he had encouragement from many prominent patrons. According to Cortona's biographers his gifted copy of Raphael's Galatea fresco brought him to the attention of Marcello Sacchetti, papal treasurer during the Barberini papacy; such contacts helped him gain an early major commission in Rome, a fresco decoration in the church of Santa Bibiana, being renovated under the direction of Bernini. In 1626, the Sacchetti family engaged Cortona to paint three large canvases of The Sacrifice of Polyxena, The Triumph of Bacchus, The Rape of the Sabines, to paint a series of frescoes in the Villa Sacchetti at Castelfusano, near Ostia, using a team that included the young Andrea Sacchi. In the Sacchetti orbit, he met Pope Urban VIII and Cardinal Francesco Barberini, the papal nephew, their patronage of Cortona provided him with ample scope to demonstrate his abilities as a painter of frescoes and canvases.
Fresco cycles were numerous in Cortona's Rome. In 1633, Pope Urban VIII commissioned from Cortona a large fresco painting for the main salon ceiling of the Barberini family palace, it was completed six years following Cortona's influential visit to northern Italy where he would have seen at first hand perspectival works by Paolo Veronese and the colour palette of Titian. Cortona's huge Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power marks a watershed in Baroque painting. Following the architecture of the room, he created the painted illusion of an open airy architectural framework against which figures are situated seen'al di sotto in su' coming into the room itself or floating far above it; the ornamented architectural framework forms five compartments. The central and most significant part celebrates the glorification of the reign of Urban VIII in a light filled scene populated with allegorical figures and Barberini family emblems; the illusion of spatial extension through paint, the grandiose theme and the skill of execution could only astonish and impress the visitor.
However, Cortona's panegyric trompe-l'œil extravaganzas may be less popular in a world familiar with minimalism and such like, yet they are precursors of the sunny figures and cherubim infested with rococo excesses. They contrast markedly with the darker naturalism prominent in Caravaggisti works and with the classicising compositions by painters such as Domenichino and Andrea Sacchi, remind us that Baroque painting could be grand in an epic manner and exuberant in spirit. Cortona had been patronized by the Tuscan community in Rome, hence it was not surprising when he was passing through Florence in 1637, that he should be asked by Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici to paint a series of frescoes intended to represent Ovid's Four Ages of Man in the small Sala della Stufa, a room in the Palazzo Pitti; the first two frescoes represented the "ages" of silver. In 1641, he was recalled to paint the'Bronze Age' and'Iron Age' frescoes, it is said he was guided in the formulation of the allegorical designs by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger.
He thus began work on the decoration of the grand-ducal reception rooms on the first floor of the Palazzo Pitti, now part of the Palatine Gallery. In these five Planetary Rooms, the hierarchical sequence of the deities is based on Ptolomeic cosmology; these ornate ceilings with frescoes and elaborate stucco work celebrate the Medici lineage and the bestowal of virtuous leadership. Pietro left Florence in 1647 to return to Rome, his pupil and collaborator, Ciro Ferri, was left to complete the cycle by the 1660s. For a number of years, Cortona was involved for decades in the decoration of the ceiling frescoes in the Oratorian Chiesa Nuova in Rome, a work not finished until 1665. Other frescoes are in Palazzo Pamphilj in Piazza Navona. In 1660, he executed The Stoning of Saint Stephen for the church of San Ambrogio della Massima in Rome; the work hangs in the Hermitage. Towards the end of his life he devoted much of his time to architecture
Janus
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, transitions, duality, doorways and endings. He is depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past, it is conventionally thought that the month of January is named for Janus, but according to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity of the month. Janus presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, hence war and peace; the gates of a building in Rome named after him were opened in time of war, closed to mark the arrival of peace. As a god of transitions, he had functions pertaining to birth and to journeys and exchange, in his association with Portunus, a similar harbor and gateway god, he was concerned with travelling and shipping. Janus had no flamen or specialised priest assigned to him, but the King of the Sacred Rites himself carried out his ceremonies. Janus had an ubiquitous presence in religious ceremonies throughout the year; as such, Janus was ritually invoked at the beginning of each ceremony, regardless of the main deity honored on any particular occasion.
The ancient Greeks had no equivalent to Janus. Three etymologies were proposed by ancient erudites, each of them bearing implications about the nature of the god; the first one is based on the definition of Chaos given by Paul the Deacon: hiantem, hiare, be open, from which word Ianus would derive by loss of the initial aspirate. In this etymology, the notion of Chaos would define the primordial nature of the god. Another etymology proposed by Nigidius Figulus is related by Macrobius: Ianus would be Apollo and Diana Iana, by the addition of a D for the sake of euphony; this explanation has been accepted by A. B. Cook and J. G. Frazer, it supports all the assimilations of Janus to the sun and the moon. It supposes a former *Dianus, formed on *dia- < *dy-eð2 from Indo-European root *dey- shine represented in Latin by dies day and Iuppiter. However the form Dianus postulated by Nigidius is not attested. A third etymology indicated by Cicero and Macrobius, which explains the name as Latin, deriving it from the verb ire is based on the interpretation of Janus as the god of beginnings and transitions.
Modern scholars have conjectured that it derives from the Indo-European root meaning transitional movement. Iānus would be an action name expressing the idea of going, formed on the root *yā- < *y-eð2- theme II of the root *ey- go from which eō, ειμι. Other modern scholars object to an Indo-European etymology either from Dianus or from root *yā-. From Ianus derived ianua, hence the English word "janitor". While the fundamental nature of Janus is debated, in most modern scholars' view the god's functions may be seen as being organized around a single principle: presiding over all beginnings and transitions, whether abstract or concrete, sacred or profane. Interpretations concerning the god's fundamental nature either limit it to this general function or emphasize a concrete or particular aspect of it or else see in the god a sort of cosmological principle, interpreting him as a uranic deity. All of these modern explanations were formulated by the ancients, his function as god of beginnings has been expressed in numerous ancient sources, among them most notably Cicero and Varro.
As a god of motion, Janus looks after passages, causes actions to start and presides over all beginnings. Since movement and change are interconnected, he has a double nature, symbolised in his two headed image, he has under his tutelage the stepping in and out of the door of homes, the ianua, which took its name from him, not vice versa. His tutelage extends to the covered passages named iani and foremost to the gates of the city, including the cultic gate of the Argiletum, named Ianus Geminus or Porta Ianualis from which he protects Rome against the Sabines, he is present at the Sororium Tigillum, where he guards the terminus of the ways into Rome from Latium. He has an altar a temple near the Porta Carmentalis, where the road leading to Veii ended, as well as being present on the Janiculum, a gateway from Rome out to Etruria; the connection of the notions of beginning, movement and thence time was expressed by Cicero. In general, Janus is at the origin of time as the guardian of the gates of Heaven: Jupiter himself can move forth and back because of Janus's working.
In one of his temples that of Forum Holitorium, the hands of his statue were positioned to signify the number 355 365, symbolically expressing his mastership over time. He presides over the concrete and abstract beginnings of the world, such as religion and the gods themselves, he too holds the access to Heaven and to other gods: this is the reason why men must invoke him first, regardless of the god they want to pray to or placate, he is the initiator of human life, of new historical ages, financial enterprises: according to myth he was the first to mint coins and the as, first coin of the liberal series, bears his effigy on one face. Janus symbolized change and transitions such as the progress of past to future, from one condition to another, from one vision to another, young people's growth to adulthood, he represented time, because he could see in
Diana (mythology)
Diana is a Roman goddess of the hunt, the Moon, nature, associated with wild animals and woodland. She is equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, absorbed much of Artemis' mythology early in Roman history, including a birth on the island of Delos to parents Jupiter and Latona, a twin brother, though she had an independent origin in Italy. Diana was known as the virgin goddess of childbirth and women, she was one of the three maiden goddesses, along with Vesta, who swore never to marry. Oak groves and deer were sacred to her. Diana made up a triad with two other Roman deities. Diana is revered in modern Neopagan religions including Roman Neopaganism and Wicca. From the medieval to the modern period, as folklore attached to her developed and was adapted into neopagan religions, the mythology surrounding Diana grew to include a consort and daughter, figures sometimes recognized by modern traditions. In the ancient and modern periods, Diana has been considered a triple deity, merged with a goddess of the moon and the underworld.
Dīāna is an adjectival form developed from an ancient *divios, corresponding to dīvus, dius, as in Dius Fidius, Dea Dia, in the neuter form dium'sky'. It is derived from Proto-Indo-European *dyew-' sky'. On the tablets of Pylos a theonym di-wi-ja is supposed as referring to a deity precursor of Artemis. Modern scholars accept the identification; the ancient Latin writers Varro and Cicero considered the etymology of Dīāna as allied to that of dies and connected to the shine of the Moon.... People regard Diana and the moon as one and the same.... The moon is so called from the verb to shine. Lucina is identified with it, why in our country they invoke Juno Lucina in childbirth, just as the Greeks call on Diana the Light-bearer. Diana has the name Omnivaga, not because of her hunting but because she is numbered as one of the seven planets, she is invoked at childbirth because children are born after seven, or after nine, lunar revolutions... --Quintus Lucilius Balbus as recorded by Marcus Tullius Cicero and translated by P.
G. Walsh. De Natura Deorum, Book II, Part ii, Section c The persona of Diana is complex, contains a number of archaic features. Diana was considered to be a goddess of the wilderness and of the hunt, a central sport in both Roman and Greek culture. Early Roman inscriptions to Diana celebrated her as a huntress and patron of hunters. In the Hellenistic period, Diana came to be or more revered as a goddess not of the wild woodland but of the "tame" countryside, or villa rustica, the idealization of, common in Greek thought and poetry; this dual role as goddess of both civilization and the wild, therefore the civilized countryside, first applied to the Greek goddess Artemis. By the 3rd century CE, after Greek influence had a profound impact on Roman religion, Diana had been fully combined with Artemis and took on many of her attributes, both in her spiritual domains and in the description of her appearance; the Roman poet Nemesianus wrote a typical description of Diana: She carried a bow and a quiver full of golden arrows, wore a golden cloak, purple half-boots, a belt with a jeweled buckle to hold her tunic together, wore her hair gathered in a ribbon.
Diana was considered an aspect of a triple goddess, known as Diana triformis: Diana and Hecate. According to historian C. M. Green, "these were an amalgamation of different goddesses, they were Diana... Diana as huntress, Diana as the moon, Diana of the underworld." At her sacred grove on the shores of Lake Nemi, Diana was venerated as a triple goddess beginning in the late 6th century BCE. Andreas Alföldi interpreted an image on a late Republican coin as the Latin Diana "conceived as a threefold unity of the divine huntress, the Moon goddess and the goddess of the nether world, Hekate"; this coin, minted by P. Accoleius Lariscolus in 43 BCE, has been acknowledged as representing an archaic statue of Diana Nemorensis, it represents Artemis with the bow at one extremity, Luna-Selene with flowers at the other and a central deity not identifiable, all united by a horizontal bar. The iconographical analysis allows the dating of this image to the 6th century at which time there are Etruscan models; the coin shows that the triple goddess cult image still stood in the lucus of Nemi in 43 BCE.
Lake Nemi was called Triviae lacus by Virgil, while Horace called Diana montium custos nemoremque virgo and diva triformis. Two heads found in the sanctuary and the Roman theatre at Nemi, which have a hollow on their back, lend support to this interpretation of an archaic triple Diana; the earliest epithet of Diana was Trivia, she was addressed with that title by Virgil and many others. "Trivia" comes from the Latin trivium, "triple way", refers to Diana's guardianship over roadways Y-junctions or three-way crossroads. This role carried a somewhat dark and dangerous connotation, as it metaphorically pointed the way to the underworld. In the 1st-century CE play Medea, Seneca's titular sorceress calls on Trivia to cast a mag
Pluto (mythology)
Pluto was the ruler of the underworld in classical mythology. The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife. Ploutōn was conflated with Ploutos, a god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest; the name Ploutōn came into widespread usage with the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which Pluto was venerated as a stern ruler but the loving husband of Persephone. The couple received souls in the afterlife, are invoked together in religious inscriptions. Hades, by contrast, had few temples and religious practices associated with him, he is portrayed as the dark and violent abductor of Persephone. Pluto and Hades differ in character. In Greek cosmogony, the god received the rule of the underworld in a three-way division of sovereignty over the world, with his brother Zeus ruling the Sky and his other brother Poseidon sovereign over the Sea.
His central narrative is the abduction of Persephone to be the queen of his realm. Plouton as the name of the ruler of the underworld first appears in Greek literature of the Classical period, in the works of the Athenian playwrights and of the philosopher Plato, the major Greek source on its significance. Under the name Pluto, the god appears in other myths in a secondary role as the possessor of a quest-object, in the descent of Orpheus or other heroes to the underworld. Plūtō is the Latinized form of the Greek Plouton. Pluto's Roman equivalent is Dis Pater, whose name is most taken to mean "Rich Father" and is a direct translation of Plouton. Pluto was identified with the obscure Roman Orcus, like Hades the name of both a god of the underworld and the underworld as a place; the borrowed Greek name Pluto is sometimes used for the ruler of the dead in Latin literature, leading some mythology handbooks to assert misleadingly that Pluto was the Roman counterpart of Hades. Pluto becomes the most common name for the classical ruler of the underworld in subsequent Western literature and other art forms.
The name Plouton does not appear in Greek literature of the Archaic period. In Hesiod's Theogony, the six children of Cronus and Rhea are Zeus, Poseidon, Hades and Hestia; the male children divide the world into three realms. Hades takes Persephone with the consent of Zeus. Ploutos, "Wealth," appears in the Theogony as the child of Demeter and Iasion: "fine Plutus, who goes upon the whole earth and the broad back of the sea, whoever meets him and comes into his hands, that man he makes rich, he bestows much wealth upon him." The union of Demeter and Iasion, described in the Odyssey, took place in a fallow field, ploughed three times, in what seems to be a reference to a ritual copulation or sympathetic magic to ensure the earth's fertility. "The resemblance of the name Ploutos to Plouton..." it has been noted, "cannot be accidental. Plouton is lord of the dead, but as Persephone's husband he has serious claims to the powers of fertility." Demeter's son Plutus merges in the narrative tradition with her son-in-law Pluto, redefining the implacable chariot-driver Hades whose horses trample the flowering earth.
That the underworld god was associated early on with success in agricultural activity is evident in Hesiod's Works and Days, line 465-469: "Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make Demeter's holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing, when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down your stick on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the yoke-straps." Plouton was one of several euphemistic names for Hades, described in the Iliad as the god most hateful to mortals. Plato says that people prefer the name Plouton, "giver of wealth," because the name of Hades is fear-provoking; the name was understood as referring to "the boundless riches of the earth, both the crops on its surface—he was a god of the land—and the mines hidden within it." What is sometimes taken as "confusion" of the two gods Plouton and Ploutos held or acquired a theological significance in antiquity. As a lord of abundance or riches, Pluto expresses the aspect of the underworld god, positive, symbolized in art by the "horn of plenty", by means of which Plouton is distinguished from the gloomier Hades.
The Roman poet Ennius, the leading figure in the Hellenization of Latin literature, considered Pluto a Greek god to be explained in terms of the Roman equivalents Dis Pater and Orcus. It is unclear; some scholars think that rituals and beliefs pertaining to Pluto entered Roman culture with the establishment of the Saecular Games in 249 BC, that Dis pater was only a translation of Plouton. In the mid-1st century BC, Cicero identifies Pluto with Dis, explaining that "The earth in all its power and plenty is sacred to Father Dis, a name, the same as Dives,'The Wealthy One,' as is the Greek Plouton; this is because everything is born of the earth and returns to it again."During the Roman Imperial era, the Greek geographer Strabo makes a distinction between Pluto and Hades. In writing of the mineral wealth of ancient Iberia, he says that among the Turdetani, it is "Pluto, not Hades, who inhabits the region down belo
Neptune (mythology)
Neptune was the god of freshwater and the sea in Roman religion. He is the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Neptune was the brother of Pluto. Salacia was his wife. Depictions of Neptune in Roman mosaics those of North Africa, are influenced by Hellenistic conventions. Neptune was associated with fresh water springs before the sea. Like Poseidon, Neptune was worshipped by the Romans as a god of horses, under the name Neptunus Equester, a patron of horse-racing; the etymology of Latin Neptunus is unclear and disputed. The ancient grammarian Varro derived the name from nuptus i.e. "covering", with a more or less explicit allusion to the nuptiae, "marriage of Heaven and Earth". Among modern scholars Paul Kretschmer proposed a derivation from IE *neptu- "moist substance". Raymond Bloch supposed it might be an adjectival form in -no from *nuptu-, meaning "he, moist". Georges Dumézil though remarked words deriving root *nep- are not attested in IE languages other than Vedic and Avestan.
He proposed an etymology that brings together Neptunus with Vedic and Avestan theonyms Apam Napat, Apam Napá and Old Irish theonym Nechtan, all meaning descendant of the waters. By using the comparative approach the Indo-Iranian and Irish figures would show common features with the Roman historicised legends about Neptune. Dumézil thence proposed to derive the nouns from IE root *nepot-, "descendant, sister's son". More in his lectures delivered on various occasions in the 1990s, German scholar Hubert Petersmann proposed an etymology from IE rootstem *nebh- related to clouds and fogs, plus suffix -tu denoting an abstract verbal noun, adjectival suffix -no which refers to the domain of activity of a person or his prerogatives. IE root *nebh-, having the original meaning of "damp, wet", has given Sanskrit nábhah, Hittite nepis, Latin nubs, German Nebel, Slavic nebo etc; the concept would be close to that expressed in the name of Greek god Όυράνος, derived from IE root *h2wórso-, "to water, irrigate" and *h2worsó-, "the irrigator".
This etymology would be more in accord with Varro's. A different etymology grounded in the legendary history of Latium and Etruria was proposed by Preller and Müller-Deeke: Etruscan Nethunus, Nethuns would be an adjectival form of toponym Nepe, town of the ager Faliscus near Falerii; the district was traditionally connected to the cult of the god: Messapus and Halesus, the eponymous hero of Falerii, were believed to be his own sons. Messapus led others to war in the Aeneid. Nepi and Falerii have been famed since antiquity for the excellent quality of the water of their springs, scattered in meadows. Nepet is considered a hydronymic toponym of pre-Indo-European origin widespread in Europe and from an appellative meaning "damp wide valley, plain", cognate with pre-Greek νάπη, "wooded valley"; the theology of Neptune may only be reconstructed to some degree, as since early times he was identified with the Greek god Poseidon: his presence in the lectisternium of 399 BC is a testimony to the fact.
Such an identification may well be grounded in the strict relationship between the Latin and Greek theologies of the two deities. It has been argued that Indo-European people, having no direct knowledge of the sea as they originated from inland areas, reused the theology of a deity either chthonic or wielding power over inland freshwaters as the god of the sea; this feature has been preserved well in the case of Neptune, a god of springs and rivers before becoming a god of the sea, as is testified by the numerous findings of inscriptions mentioning him in the proximity of such locations. Servius the grammarian explicitly states Neptune is in charge of all the rivers and waters, he is the lord of horses because he worked with Minerva to make the chariot. He may find a parallel in Irish god Nechtan, master of the well from which all the rivers of the world flow out and flow back to. Poseidon on the other hand underwent the process of becoming the main god of the sea at a much earlier time, as is shown in the Iliad.
In the earlier times it was the god Portunus or Fortunus, thanked for naval victories, but Neptune supplanted him in this role by at least the first century BC when Sextus Pompeius called himself "son of Neptune." For a time he was paired with the goddess of the salt water. Neptune was considered the legendary progenitor god of a Latin stock, the Faliscans, who called themselves Neptunia proles. In this respect he was the equivalent of Mars, Janus and Jupiter among Latin tribes. Salacia would represent the virile force of Neptune; the Neptunalia was the festival of Neptune at the height of summer. The date and the construction of tree-branch shelters suggest a primitive role for Neptune as god of water sources in the summer's drought and heat; the most ancient Roman calendar set the feriae of Neptunus on July 23, two days after the Lucaria of July 19 and 21 and two days before the Furrinalia of July 25. Georg Wissowa had remarked that festivals falling in a range of three days are complementary.
Dumézil elaborated that these festivals in some way were all related to the importance of water during the period of summer heat and drought, when river and spring waters are at their lowest. Founding his analysis on the works of Palladius and Columella Dumézil argues that while the Lucaria were devoted to the dressing of woods, clearing the undergrown bushes by cutting on the 19 by uprooting and burning on the 21, the Neptunalia were devoted to works
Minerva
Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom and strategic warfare and the sponsor of arts and strategy. From the second century BC onward, the Romans equated her with the Greek goddess Athena, though the Romans did not stress her relation to battle and warfare as the Greeks did. Following the Greek myths around Athena, she was born of Metis, swallowed by Jupiter, burst from her father's head armed and clad in armor. Jupiter forcefully impregnated the titaness Metis, which resulted in her attempting to change shape to escape him. Jupiter recalled the prophecy that his own child would overthrow him as he had Saturn, in turn, Saturn had Caelus. Fearing that their child would be male, would grow stronger than he was and rule the Heavens in his place, Jupiter swallowed Metis whole after tricking her into turning herself into a fly; the titaness gave birth to Minerva and forged weapons and armor for her child while within Jupiter's body. In some versions of the story, Metis continued to live inside of Jupiter's mind as the source of his wisdom.
Others say she was a vessel for the birth of Minerva. The constant pounding and ringing left Jupiter with agonizing pain. To relieve the pain, Vulcan used a hammer to split Jupiter's head and, from the cleft, Minerva emerged, adult, in full battle armor, she was the virgin goddess of music, medicine, commerce and the crafts. She is depicted with her sacred creature, an owl named as the "owl of Minerva", which symbolised her association with wisdom and knowledge as well as, less the snake and the olive tree. Minerva was worshipped at several locations in Rome, most prominently as part of the Capitoline Triad, she was worshipped at the Temple of Minerva Medica, at the "Delubrum Minervae", a temple founded around 50 BC by Pompey on the site now occupied by the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The Romans celebrated her festival from March 19 to March 23 during the day, called, in the neuter plural, the fifth after the Ides of March, the nineteenth, an artisans' holiday. A lesser version, the Minusculae Quinquatria, was held on the Ides of June, June 13, by the flute-players, who were useful to religion.
In 207 BC, a guild of poets and actors was formed to meet and make votive offerings at the temple of Minerva on the Aventine Hill. Among others, its members included Livius Andronicus; the Aventine sanctuary of Minerva continued to be an important center of the arts for much of the middle Roman Republic. As Minerva Medica, she was the goddess of medicine and physicians; as Minerva Achaea, she was worshipped at Lucera in Apulia where votive gifts and arms said to be those of Diomedes were preserved in her temple. Her worship was spread throughout the empire. In Britain, for example, she was syncretized with the local goddess Sulis, invoked for restitution for theft. In Fasti III, Ovid called her the "goddess of a thousand works". Minerva was worshipped throughout Italy, when she became equated with the Greek goddess Athena, she became a goddess of battle. Unlike Mars, god of war, she was sometimes portrayed with sword lowered, in sympathy for the recent dead, rather than raised in triumph and battle lust.
In Rome her bellicose nature was emphasized less than elsewhere. Minerva is featured on the coinage of different Roman emperors, she is represented on the reverse side of a coin holding an owl and a spear among her attributes. Stemming from an Italic moon goddess *Meneswā, the Etruscans adopted the inherited Old Latin name, *Menerwā, thereby calling her Menrva, it is presumed that Minerva, is based on this Etruscan mythology. Minerva was the goddess of wisdom, art and commerce, she was the Etruscan counterpart to Greek Athena. Like Athena, Minerva burst from the head of her father, who had devoured her mother in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent her birth. By a process of folk etymology, the Romans could have linked her foreign name to the root men- in Latin words such as mens meaning "mind" because one of her aspects as goddess pertained to the intellectual; the word mens is built from the Proto-Indo-European root *men-'mind'. The Etruscan Menrva was part of a holy triad with Tinia and Uni, equivalent to the Roman Capitoline Triad of Jupiter-Juno-Minerva.
As a patron goddess of wisdom, Minerva features in statuary, as an image on seals, in other forms at educational institutions. The Seal of California depicts the Goddess Minerva, her birth fully-grown parallels California becoming a state without first being a territory. According to John Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy, the third degree of the Bavarian Illuminati was called Minerval or Brother of Minerva, in honor of the goddess of learning; this title was adopted for the first initiation of Aleister Crowley's OTO rituals. Minerva Schools at KGI is a global four-year undergraduate program A statue of Minerva is displayed by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is the university's new graphic identity starting 2004. A small Roman shrine to Minerva stands in Chester, it sits in a public park. A statue to Minerva was designed by John Charles Felix Rossi to adorn the Town Hall of Liverpool, where it has stood since 1799, it was restored as part of the 2014 renovations conducted by the city.
The Minerva Roundabout in Guadalajara, located at the crossing of the López Mateos, Vallarta, López Cotilla, Agustín Yáñez, G
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury is a major god in Roman religion and mythology, being one of the 12 Dii Consentes within the ancient Roman pantheon. He is the god of financial gain, eloquence, communication, boundaries, luck and thieves, he was considered the son of Maia, a daughter of the Titan Atlas, Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx and merces. In his earliest forms, he appears to have been related to the Etruscan deity Turms, he is depicted holding the caduceus in his left hand. Similar to his Greek equivalent Hermes, he was awarded the caduceus by Apollo who handed him a magic wand, which turned into the caduceus. Mercury did not appear among the numinous di indigetes of early Roman religion. Rather, he subsumed the earlier Dei Lucrii as Roman religion was syncretized with Greek religion during the time of the Roman Republic, starting around the 4th century BC. From the beginning, Mercury had the same aspects as Hermes, wearing winged shoes and a winged hat, carrying the caduceus, a herald's staff with two entwined snakes, Apollo's gift to Hermes.
He was accompanied by a cockerel, herald of the new day, a ram or goat, symbolizing fertility, a tortoise, referring to Mercury's legendary invention of the lyre from a tortoise shell. Like Hermes, he was a god of messages, eloquence and of trade of the grain trade. Mercury was considered a god of abundance and commercial success in Gaul, where he was said to have been revered, he was like Hermes, the Romans' psychopomp, leading newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Additionally, Ovid wrote that Mercury carried Morpheus' dreams from the valley of Somnus to sleeping humans. Archeological evidence from Pompeii suggests; the god of commerce was depicted on two early bronze coins of the Roman Republic, the Sextans and the Semuncia. When they described the gods of Celtic and Germanic tribes, rather than considering them separate deities, the Romans interpreted them as local manifestations or aspects of their own gods, a cultural trait called the interpretatio Romana. Mercury, in particular, was reported as becoming popular among the nations the Roman Empire conquered.
This is because, in the Roman syncretism, Mercury was equated with the Celtic god Lugus, in this aspect was accompanied by the Celtic goddess Rosmerta. Although Lugus may have been a deity of light or the sun, similar to the Roman Apollo, his importance as a god of trade made him more comparable to Mercury, Apollo was instead equated with the Celtic deity Belenus. Romans associated Mercury with the Germanic god Wotan, by interpretatio Romana. Mercury is known to the Romans as Mercurius and in earlier writings as Merqurius, Mirqurios or Mircurios, had a number of epithets representing different aspects or roles, or representing syncretisms with non-Roman deities; the most common and significant of these epithets included the following: Mercurius Artaios, a syncretism of Mercury with the Celtic god Artaios, a deity of bears and hunting, worshiped at Beaucroissant, France. Mercurius Arvernus, a syncretism of the Celtic Arvernus with Mercury. Arvernus was worshiped in the Rhineland as a particular deity of the Arverni tribe, though no dedications to Mercurius Arvernus occur in their territory in the Auvergne region of central France.
Mercurius Cimbrianus, a syncretism of Mercury with a god of the Cimbri sometimes thought to represent Odin. Mercurius Cissonius, a combination of Mercury with the Celtic god Cissonius, written of in the area spanning from Cologne, Germany to Saintes, France. Mercurius Esibraeus, a syncretism of the Iberian deity Esibraeus with the Roman deity Mercury. Esibraeus is mentioned only in an inscription found at Medelim, is the same deity as Banda Isibraiegus, invoked in an inscription from the nearby village of Bemposta. Mercurius Gebrinius, a syncretism of Mercury with the Celtic or Germanic Gebrinius, known from an inscription on an altar in Bonn, Germany. Mercurius Moccus, from a Celtic god, equated with Mercury, known from evidence at Langres, France; the name Moccus implies. Mercurius Sobrius, a syncretism of Mercury with a Carthaginian god of commerce. Mercurius Visucius, a syncretism of the Celtic god Visucius with the Roman god Mercury, attested in an inscription from Stuttgart, Germany. Visucius was worshiped in the frontier area of the empire in Gaul and Germany.
Although he was associated with Mercury, Visucius was sometimes linked to the Roman god Mars, as a dedicatory inscription to "Mars Visucius" and Visucia, Visicius' female counterpart, was found in Gaul. In Virgil's Aeneid, Mercury reminds Aeneas of his mission to found the city of Rome. In Ovid's Fasti, Mercury is assigned to escort the
