The Magic Square (SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS)

The Magic Square
Clicca qui per la versione Italiana

Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas

What's this small masterpiece of literal engineering, readable in many directions? First discoveries of the Square relate to year 822, in an ancient Bible; in a wall of Siena's Dome, opposite the Archibishop Palace; in a mosaic behind the altar of Pieve Terzagni, near Cremona; in the castles of Chinon e Jarnac; in an old Puy house (Loire); in the Maison de justice in Valbonnais (Isère); in the church of San Pietro in Oratorium near Capestrano (L'Aquila); in a convent in Val Seriana and another one - where the text has been lost - in the convent of Maria Maddalena in Campomarzio in Verona; in a manuscript of the Capitolare Library in Vercelli where words are written one behind the other forming the perfect palindrom satorarepotenetoperarotas. Very often the Square was evocated for his taumaturgic virtues. A quill d'Aurillac of XIII century says that showed to a pregnant woman, it will make she give birth without pain; according to what says a book printed in Lione in 1555 by Jean de Choul, the Square would be effective againts fever; in the work De rerum varietate of the doctor and astrologist Gerolamo Cardano (Milano, 1557), against rage; many popular magic books sold in French and Belgian fairs, say it would be usufel to induce women to... dance. The method suggested by Cardano - giving to the suspected dog a piece of bread with the five magic words written on it simultaneously saying five Paternoster - is reported even by rev. Giacomo Filippo Tommasini, bishop of Cittanova d'Istria in the middle of XVII century, in a chapter of his Commentari Storici Geografici dell'Istria, where sickness of the Istrian people are treated. No wonder. In a recent published book (Ciascuno ha la sua, by B. Castellino e L. Villani, 1962) we can read: "The first friday of full Moon, buy a red rope, three palms long. Retire in a dark room and say the following cabalistic words nine times continously: Enam, Binach, Sator, Arepo, Tenet, Opera, Rotas, Hold, Kether, Coeckmae, Tedulah, Teburah, Tipheret, Jesot, Sardac, Jo, Nezah. As soon as the invocations end, deeply thinking to the beloved one, beg: love me! In this moment make a knot on the red rope. This ceremony has to be repeated for nine days, at the same time. As soon as the knots are done, put the rope around the left arm hideously touching the beloved one". Let's come back to the discoveries and the news available around 1868. They didn't go over XI century; it was then clear that the SATOR formula could not be older then that time. Until, in a day of 1868, in the ancient roman ruin of Cirencester (the ancient Corinium, in Great Britain), on the external wall of an anonymous house - but made before III century - a graffiti with the same Square was found. A group of people started studiing it deeply: some believed it a christian symbol, some greatly refused the theory (some came to this simple explain: "Once upon a time there was a sacrestan - whose name was Salvatore Arepo - who played bells with the system (used in that period) of the wheels"). The supporters of the religious ipothesis thaught this: In the beginning, during tremendous persecutions againts faith, Christians couldn't freely show their belief; so they thaught it was enough to sketch the figure of God, and to trace the Cross Sign. It was the period of cruces dissimulae. The Magic Square, then, can only refer to that period and must contain itself a specific Christian meaning. A Chemitz evangelist reverend, Felix Grossier, found what the meaning was in 1962, beeing so clever to reorder the 25 letters in the Cross Sign, where the word PATERNOSTER - that makes the arms - is preceded by the letters A and O, latin corresponding to the greek Alpha and Omega, beginning and end of all things:

It was a triumph for the supporters of the religious theory. But the others said: "Interesting, but why don't we try to explain even the apparent meaning? AREPO, for instance, is a big point: and don't try to say it was a first name". But even this last obstacle was overridden. They found out that in Lione, a measure of area, during the roman empire, was called semiiugerum and, using a local word, arepennis, from the name of the instrument, àrepos, used to work terrain. Nothing simpler that the celtic word àrepos became for latins àrepus. As a double wit, from the pages of a greek Bible of XIV century, made by a Bizantin monk, came out a translation of the Square, where the word AREPO was substituted by the greek àrotron. Then it became: "The inseminator, with his instrument, takes care of the wheels". No more time for all the strange explanations given by the many that tried to make an anagram of the 25 letters:

Oro te, pater, oro te, pater, sanas!
O pater, ores, pro aetate nostra!
Ora, operare, ostenta te, Pastor!
Retro Satana, toto opere asper!

or those of the opposite meaning, according to the magic meaning the Square had:

Satan oro te, pro arte a te spero
Satan, ter oro te, opera praesto!
Satan, oro te, reparato opes!

It seemed to be over, when two discoveries made in Pompei - one on October 5, 1925 and the other on November 12, 1936 - started it over again. Eventually, in those dates came out from the unburied town, respectively in a piece of the wall of Paquio Proculo's house and in the middle column of the portico of a building west to the Amphitheater, two graffiti with the same Square. Some said: "Nothing new; it means that in Pompei, before the famous eruption of 79, there was a clandestine christian centre!". "Impossible - said oppositors - because, if we accept the Grosser's theory, the A and O (corresponding to greek Alpha and Omega) can be nothing but a recall of Apocalypse, the part in which (I, 8) God, talking to John said: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the One that has been and will be. And actually the diffusion of Apocalypse in central and southern Italy couldn't happen before years 120-150: so, another successfull explanation had to be found. It was easy to find it, because many inscriptions exist in Pompei relative to period past the burying of the town. They have been made by thieves and illegal archeologists, as Carcopino that deeply studied the problem said. So the date of birth of the magic words is that established in Cirencester: that III century in which there was even the habit to indicate the Cross with the greek letter tau. Notation confirmed by another intuition of Grosser and his fellows: that anywhere in the Square where there is a T, next to it there are simultaneously and A and an O:

As a diffusion centre, the thought went to Gallia, precisely Lione, where effectively, from II century onward, the history of Christianism grew. Only the Christ's Square could give back to Rome, in the III century under the pressure of the barbarians, struggled by fights for the Empire, the hope of salvation. "Now - says Carcopino - this salvation couldn't be connected to the Square, if it, with the first words of the Sunday pray made in a cross by an anagram, and those crosses visibile only to those who knew the T secret of the TENET Ts, didn't include a secret symbol of the Christ's Cross".

The magic square painted in the Abbazia of Trisulti (Collepardo, Frosinone, Italy)

Bibliography
Carcopino G. - Le Christianisme secret du carré magique - Paris, Michel, 1953
G.A. Rossi - Storia dell'Enigmistica - Centro Editoriale Internazionale, Rome
Santi A. - Bibliografia dell'enigmistica - Firenze, Sansoni, 1952
Giacomo Filippo Tomassini - Commentari Storici Geografici dell'Istria - Italian National Library, Rome
B. Castellino e L. Villani - Ciascuno ha la sua - 1962
Gerolamo Cardano - De rerum varietate, Milano, 1557 - Italian National Library, Rome
Various Authors - The Bible