Perillos: the navel of another world? Part 3: Another navel?

 

A discovery

Ramon de Perillos was the right hand man to King Juan I of Aragon. When the king died in what some considered to be foul play, it was an ideal time for some jealous colleagues of Ramon de Perillos to direct suspicion towards him. Some claimed he had poisoned the king.
In 1390, Ramon de Perillos thus decided to visit the soul of his deceased friend and king and went to St Patrick’s Purgatory in Ireland, as a public display of his innocence. He leaves the court to travel through France and England, before arriving at his destination, the only functioning Purgatory in all of Europe at that time. When he returns, we see him write a chronicle, now in the National Library of Spain, and speaks about “an entrance to another world” that he states is situated on his territories. Such “entrances to another world”, whatever he really means, are definitely not going to be numerous! So if he has one on his territories – even if he is mistaken about it actually being an entrance or not – he will go very far to protect it… or to get it working again? If it is directly linked with St Patrick’s Purgatory, a site which was the most important and best known site of Ireland for most contemporary Europeans, then it underlines how important this site in Perillos would be. It would rewrite the landscape of that region, if not the Aragon. Perpignan would become a “port” from which people would be able to go to Perillos! Certainly, it would have allowed him privileges with certain kings… to paraphrase Louis Fouquet in the famous letter he sent to his brother.

If Perillos is a “navel of the world”, then it means that there was an “access” to another world. The expression that a site was a “navel site” is not so much the terminology in use at the time, but more a “modern classifier” for sites such as Delphi. Instead, Ramon de Perillos calls it “an entrance to another world”. After having visited Ireland, he has been “initiated”; it has dawned on him: what he has found there, exists back home too. You can almost hear him wonder how he could have been so stupid, an educated, alchemically versed man as himself! Then again, perhaps he had made that realisation before, but found confirmation or verification in Ireland.
If so, then his “pilgrimage” would be more like a visit amongst colleagues, rather than a test of his faith and his show of faith and innocence. In the former scenario, did he know about his own installation and did he go to Ireland to see how an operative Purgatory looked like… and what it would take to make his site operative… again?

Goodbye… forever?

If – if – Perillos indeed had an entrance to another world, or even if Ramon de Perillos merely believed it had, it is clear that this belief or existence would be deemed to be of tremendous importance. So what does Ramon de Perillos and his descendents do? Well, they seem to quit their territory, to go and live in Valencia and Italy. The Valencia angle is another story, which we reserve for elsewhere.
For now, let us repeat part of the genealogy of Ramon IV de Perillos. “He is made Captain General of the Marine (1428) and serves Peter in Naples and on the African coastline. We find him in Tunis, at the head of the armed forces in 1432. In 1433, the king sends him to the Emperor. He then retires to Sicily, leaving the Lieutenancy of the Roussillon to his brother Louis. He is a member of the Royal Council of Gaeta (1436) and later becomes viceroy of Sicily and acquires Castellammare di Stabia in 1441.” We note the presence of Gaeta and Naples.

The “Spelonca” of Gaeta

Gaeta sits on the Italian coastline, between Rome and Naples. When using the railway between both locations, you pass through it.
Gaeta is located on the “river of Ulysses”. To make this voyage, we will use Virgil as our guide. He was a Roman author who was well-known in the 14th century. There is no doubt whatsoever that a man of Ramon’s education must have known him and the Aeneas, one of the most famous books in history. In the Aeneas, Virgil speaks of a location known as “Cajeta”, where the wet-nurse of Aeneas dies. Strabo stated that the name came from “Kaiàdas” or “Kaiètas”, which means… cave.

Gaeta had a castle that belonged to the Aragon and there can be little doubt that Ramon IV must have often visited it, if not stayed there. We also note, as an aside, that the Montagno Spaccata, on Mount Orlando, has a fissure in the rock which, according to legend, opened at the moment when Jesus died.
It is here, in Gaeta, that Perillos has an important seat in the council of the town. The location will play an important role in the history of Perillos, for the site is also mentioned in the biography of Michel de Perillos. It is here, in the cave, that the antipope Clement placed the red hat of cardinal on the head of Pierre de Sarracenas… and the mitre of bishop on Michel de Perillos!
The event happened in the “famous spelunca”, the cave that is situated in Sperlonga (a name derived from Spelunca). The site is indeed known to have served as a place of refuge for pope Clement. Let us also note that it is Michel de Perillos who will ask Pedro de Luna (when he is pope) to send Vincent Ferrer to his bishopric, in the Alpine province of Embrun, which happens in 1401. We thus see that the area had a Perillos presence at least twice.
The cave itself sits on the edge of the sea and provides an idyllic framework. It is located where the Roman Emperor Tiberius, in the first century AD, had a summer villa. The cave is the focal point of the site. It was here where there were numerous sculptures that were inspired by the Odyssey. Most of them are now located in a museum. Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey were incredibly well known and it should be noted that it was Virgil’s Aenead that was considered to be, by the author himself, the third part of the trilogy.

We know that Perillos is famous as a result of Saunière’s model, which shows two caves. One of them is labelled, on the model, Tomb of Christ and is still sealed. We note that the cave of Tiberius is compared to the one in which the mythical Cyclops Polyphemos lived; he too sealed it with a giant stone rolled in front of it, where he kept some of the sailors that he had captured.
The cave served as a banquet hall for the emperor, who ruled from 14 to 37 AD. His reign thus coincided with the death of Christ and it is no doubt for that reason that the nearby mountain and its fissure allegedly split… even though towards 33-36 AD, Tiberius had abandoned his villa, to settle in Capri, near Naples. His departure from Sperlonga may have to do with the fact that during one visit to the site, a rock fell from the ceiling, almost killing the Emperor. At the time, the cave was known to be extremely beautiful, but also very dangerous!

Napoli

Virgil identified the promontory of Gaeta with the tumulus where the remains of Caieta, the wet-nurse of Aeneas, died, after she had left Cumae. We have already noted that Cumae was the residence of the Sibyl, who, in the Aenead, guides Aeneas to a site that is known as the “Aornos cave”. To quote from Virgil: “There was a huge, deep cave with jagged pebbles underfoot and a gaping mouth guarded by dark woods and the black waters of a lake. No bird could wing its flight over this cave and live, so deadly was the breath that streamed out of that black throat and up into the vault of heaven. Hence the Greek name, ‘Aornos’, ‘ the place without birds’.”

Church of St Barbara, Castel Nuovo, Naples

We know that this cave is located not too far from Cumae. For Robert Temple and Robert Paget, the cave was at Baia, though not everyone accepts that interpretation. Still, if Baia is not the Aornos cave, then it is clear that the site has not yet been discovered.

The descent of Aeneas in this cave is symbolically on par with the descent of Orpheus and other such descents. Still, here the goal is not to find a lost love, but to enter in contact with the soul of his dead father. We immediately note a clear parallel with St Patrick’s Purgatory in Ireland, and the visions of Ramon de Perillos, trying to contact the soul of his deceased friend and king.
Even though the Antrum of the Sibyl was not located until 1932, the site of Cumae itself was known and the antrum itself was widely discussed. It meant that several people knew about it and several came to the area, to search for it…. Unsuccessfully Many must have walked through the countryside… very much like people go on long constitutional walks in and around Perillos, to discover the location of the famous tombs!

Petrarch and Dante

Before the arrival of Ramon IV and the kings of Aragon, Francesco Petrarca, also known as Petrarch, and Dante were interested in the story. Dante (1265-1321) and Petrarch (1304-1374) are seen as the fathers of the Renaissance. Dante underlined his close affinity to the Underworld, Purgatory and Virgil.

Chapel of the Souls in Purgatory, Castel Nuovo, Naples

The famous “Divine Comedy” explains the voyage of Dante to the underworld (Inferno), to purgatory (Purgatorio) and paradise (Paradiso). He has Virgil as his guide and then Beatrice, the love of his life. His vision of Hell is vibrant, but the theological subtleties of his other books take some patience before one comprehends their tenor. Purgatory is the most lyrical and humane of his voyages and it is there that we find several poets reside in this realm. As to paradise, it is reputed to have been the most beautiful mythic landscape. Dante writes that it is difficult to render what he saw, specifically when it comes to seeing the Face of God, for which he claims there are no words to describe it.
Dante, to develop the theme of Purgatory, uses only Virgil as his guide through this land of shadows. It was Virgil who described what Aeneas and the Sibyl came across on their perilous journey. It relates the various arguments and offerings that seem indispensable to please the various deities before, finally, to leave the infernal realm through the Gate of Ivory. Tradition states that these realms had two exits: the Gate of Horns and the Gate of Ivory. The latter was seen as a “false door”, corresponding to the exit destined to be used by illusions. It is as such that the specialists on this subject state that there are several comparisons with a novel from the 15th century, the Hypnertomachia Poliphili, in which the central character also goes in search of a lost love… only to find that at the end of his travels, it is nothing but an illusion.

A hypothesis for Perillos

The Perillos family, and specifically Ramon IV, did not settle down in Valencia, nor in Perillos, but in Gaeta and Naples. What a fortunate coincidence that this location in Italy just happens to be the only site in Italy – if not the ancient world – where there was deemed to be an access to Hell! How strange that they end up in places that are primarily linked with Purgatories and that “work” just “happens” to take them there.
There are several castles belonging to the Aragon kings and nobility in this sector of Italy. We have mostly eyes for two: Naples and Baia. In Baia, it is remarkable that from the castle, one can see the entrance to the antrum, the oracle of the dead, which was only discovered in 1962. We can only wonder how many stayed there, looked out towards the cliff face, but only saw the bathing complex and did not know what the Romans had sealed off inside.
In the harbour of Naples, we find the “Castel Nuovo”. This castle, equipped with five towers, is also known as the Maschio Angioino and it was the residence of the kings and viceroys of Naples, at one point the Anjou family. We note, for those who enjoy such coincidences, that it was René d’Anjou who was believed or identified as past Grand Master of the so-called Priory of Sion.
The castle was constructed by Charles I of Anjou, between 1279 and 1282, and then enlarged by Alfonso I of Aragon. The main entrance is a remarkable sight and shows a triumphal arch in the style of the Renaissance, built as it was between 1453 and 1467, to honour the entrance of Alfonso I of Aragon to the town.

When we enter the central courtyard, we stand in front of a large church. Coincidentally, of course, the church is dedicated to St Barbara, one of the patron saints of Perillos. Slightly down, a bit to the right, there is a small chapel: the "Cappella delle anime del purgatorio”, or “the chapel of the souls in purgatory”. They are the only two religious structures in this building. If Ramon de Perillos ever came here, then he could have easily dreamed of his native land, Perillos…
Ramon IV not only was on business in Italy, he also lived there. What did he do in his spare time? Did he socialise? Did he too go on long constitutional walks? If the Aornos cave is indeed not the one at Baia, then it is still somewhere “out there”. That it disappeared, despite its reputation, is one thing; that it has not been discovered despite the best efforts of many is amazing. Perhaps we should indeed wonder whether some people know more than they are letting on. Perhaps some people, perhaps even an organisation, know more? Robert Paget searched high and low and did not find anything, but if the entrance is “secured”, then it is clear – as is the case in Perillos – that certain sites remain hard to find.

The Two Gates

Before ending our enquiries, let us make one final observation. We note that the Underworld had two gates: a genuine and a false exit. Even though the oracle of the dead in Baia merely had one exit, it is nevertheless equipped with an ingenious system, namely a series of doors, which can open and close, which leaves a visitor with the idea that he leaves through a different exit than the one he entered… and there is, on the way out, another illusion, namely one corridor splitting into two, which in the end leads to a single exit, but which the system of doors could arrange so as to give the impression it was yet another exit. So, Baia has in principle three doors: one entrance, two exits.
Two doors? Two tombs? In the landscape of Perillos, these tombs do not look like tombs, but are really two cave entrances, which are hermetically sealed. From the available evidence, it is likely that these lead to the same network – labyrinth – that one can access from within the church of Perillos. If this assumption is correct, then we could see the entrance that sits underneath the church of Perillos as the entrance and the two tombs as the “exits” of the underground network… like the oracle of the dead elsewhere. If this is the case, which exit is the right one? At this moment in time, that is not the most important question to pose. Let us merely note that Saunière labelled them the Tomb of Christ and Joseph of Arimathea. We also note that Jesus often used symbolism and metaphors and that a lot of this involved connotations of Hell. We also note that the story of Jesus and the Grail, i.e. Joseph of Arimathea, is something of a “smoke and mirrors”-show itself… is that yet another reason why Saunière used that symbolism?

In Saunière’s time, there was little to no chance to enter this labyrinth from its “entrance”. Though it was accessible to the village priest if need be (and even then…), we note that strangers, such as Saunière, were faced with a populated village; a local community, one that defended (and continues to defend) the local heritage. Hence, to access it, Saunière needed to find the exits… the tombs. One exit remains untouched, but the other one clearly shows signs of someone intruding it about a century or so ago… evidence of Saunière trying to get in?

Filip Coppens